Dealing with duplicate ids in selenium webdriver - xpath

I am trying to automate some tests using selenium webdriver. I am dealing with a third-party login provider (OAuth) who is using duplicate id's in their html. As a result I cannot "find" the input fields correctly. When I just select on an id, I get the wrong one.
This question has already been answered for JQuery. But I would like an answer (I am presuming using Xpath) that will work in Selenium webdriver.
On other questions about this issue, answers typically say "you should not have duplicate id's in html". Preaching to the choir there. I am not in control of the webpage in question. If it was, I would use class and id properly and just fix the problem that way.
Since I cannot do that. What options do I get with xpath etc?

you can do it by driver.find_element_by_id, for example ur duplicate "duplicate_ID" is inside "div_ID" wich is unique :
driver.find_element_by_id("div_ID").find_element_by_id("duplicate_id")
for other duplicate id under another div :
driver.find_element_by_id("div_ID2").find_element_by_id("duplicate_id")

This XPath expression:
//div[#id='something']
selects all div elements in the XML document, the string value of whose id attribute is the string "something".
This Xpath expression:
count(//div[#id='something'])
produces the number of the div elements selected by the first XPath expression.
And this XPath expression:
(//div[#id='something'])[3]
selects the third (in document order) div element that is selected by the first XPath expression above.
Generally:
(//div[#id='something'])[$k]
selects the $k-th such div element ($k must be substituted with a positive integer).
Equipped with this knowledge, one can get any specific div whose id attribute has string value "something".

Which language are you working on? Dublicate id's shouldn't be a problem as you can virtually grab any attribute not just the id tag using xpath. The syntax will differ slightly in other languages (let me know if you want something else than Ruby) but this is how you do it:
driver.find_element(:xpath, "//input[#id='loginid']"
The way you go about constructing the xpath locator is the following:
From the html code you can pick any attribute:
<input id="gbqfq" class="gbqfif" type="text" value="" autocomplete="off" name="q">
Let's say for example that you want to consturct your xpath with the html code above (Google's search box) using name attribute. Your xpath will be:
driver.find_element(:xpath, "//input[#name='q']"
In other words when the id's are the same just grab another attribute available!
Improvement:
To avoid fragile xpath locators such as order in the XML document (which can change easily) you can use something even more robust. Two xpath locators instead of one. This can also be useful when dealing with hmtl tags that are really similar. You can locate an element by 2 of its attributes like this:
driver.find_element(:id, 'amount') and driver.find_element(xpath: "//input[#maxlength='50']")
or in pure xpath one liner if you prefer:
//input[#id="amount" and #maxlength='50']
Alternatively (and provided your xpath will only return one unique element) you can move one more step higher in the abstraction level; completely omitting the attribute values:
//input[#id and #maxlength]

It's not listed at http://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/locating-elements.html but I'm able access a method find_elements_by_id
This returns a list of all elements with the duplicate ID.
links = browser.find_elements_by_id("link")
for link in links:
print(link.get_attribute("href"))

you should use driver.findElement(By.xpath() but while locating element with firebug you should select absolute path for particular element instead of getting relative path this is how you will get the element even with duplicate ID's

Related

XPath to retrive XML tag value without Namespace and prefix

I have the following XML -
<d><m:properties xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices">
<d:AllTexts/>
<d:BomFlag/>
<d:OrderNumber>9489</d:OrderNumber>
<d:LineNumber>000000</d:LineNumber>
<d:VcFlag>Y</d:VcFlag>
<d:PricingFlag/>
<d:TextType>H</d:TextType>
<d:TextId>ZC01</d:TextId>
<d:TextLineNo>1</d:TextLineNo>
<d:TextLine>ecom header text 1</d:TextLine>
and trying to retrieve the TextLine nodelist as based on TextId = ZC01 -
<TextLine>ecom header text1</TextLine>
when I applied the xpath as --> //m:properties[d:TextId = 'ZC01']/d:TextLine
I get the output as -
<d:TextLine xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices">ecom header text 1</d:TextLine>
how can I remove the prefix and namespace? I tried using local-name(), but that didn't work
May be used it wrong way.
Thank you for your help!
Thanks
Sugata
XPath is a selection language: it can only retrieve nodes that are actually there, it can't change them in any way. If the selected element has a prefix and namespace in the original, then it will have a prefix and namespace in the result.
However, you need to distinguish what the XPath selects (a node) from the way it the result is displayed. This depends on the application that is evaluating the XPath. The two popular ways of displaying a node selected by an XPath expression are (a) by serialising the node as XML (which is what we see in your case), and (b) by showing a path to the selected node, such as /d/m:properties/d:TextLine. You haven't told us how you are evaluating the XPath expression or displaying its result, and you may have options here.
But perhaps you should consider XSLT or XQuery, which (unlike XPath) allow you to construct new XML that differs from your original.

Make 1 page objects Two Elements ID's to 1 page object Variable

I am using the page object Gem with Watir. During testing I found that I have a field that has the same contents that show in the same location but have separate unique ID's. The difference is before you get to the page.
I tried using Xpaths:
select_list(:selectionSpecial, :xpath => "//select[#id='t_id9' OR #id='t_id7']")
But was met with a script error.
They are static ID's but I want to force them into one variable since that would allow me to use "populate_page_with" feature.
I have a long winded way currently, but I am fishing for a more efficient way that works with the page object Features.
Does anyone know of a way to do this?
Your approach of using xpath can work. The problem is the syntax errors in the xpath selector. It should be:
"//select[#id='t_id9' or #id='t_id7']"
Note:
The start should be a // rather than a \
Using or is case-sensitive; it has to be lower case
There was also a missing closing ' for the first id attribute
Personally, I find css and xpath selectors harder to use. I would go with the id locator with a regex. The following gives the same results, but some will find it easier to read.
select_list(:selectionSpecial, :id => /^t_id(7|9)$/)

Selenium find element which have no attributes but have parents with same attributes

I am trying to find XPath of an element which has no attribute. It can only be identified by its parent's attribute. However, the parent also does not have unique attribute.
Eg: //*[#id="btn"][1]/ul/li[2]/a/span
Here there are 2 elements with id=btn. How do i get the 2nd element. The above syntax gives me 1st element.. However if i use:
//*[#id="btn"][2]/ul/li[2]/a/span
I get an error message
"The xpath expression '//*[#id="btn"][2]/ul/li[2]/a/span' cannot be evaluated or does not result in a WebElement "
Try this, you select those two first, then use brackets around and index them.
(//*[#id="btn"]/ul/li[2]/a/span)[2]
By the way, it's not a good practice to have multiple elements sharing same ids, if you are the developer, may consider change them.

how to find XPath for complicated tag without id or name

I have to find out XPath for code :
<td>
<input type="button" onclick="redirectToUserList(5);" class="btnManage" value="Manage Users" style="background-color: transparent;">
Using firebug the XPath is :
/html/body/div/div/div[4]/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr[2]/td/div/table/tbody/tr/td
/table/tbody/tr[5]/td/div/div/form/table/tbody/tr[2]/td[4]/input
But how can I have a shorter XPath? For example, I wish the following could run:
//input[#value='Manage Users']
Please advise how to find shorter XPath using standard syntax?
It is not mandatory to use id or name. You can use any attribute of that element.
Following are different xpaths for given locators
1. "//input[#value='Manage Users']"
2. "//input[contains(#onclick,'redirectToUserList')]"
3. "//input[#type='button' and #class='btnManage']"
You do not need to search for id or name, you can search for any attribute.
For example:
//input[#value="Manage Users"]
which sounds unique
As an addon to above given answers any specific attribute like id or name is never necessary.
We mostly take id and value to identify an element uniquely because other attributes may specify some other locators as well.
If any attribute is not creating confusion with some other locator you can choose it without any worry.
Lastly if you are not so good in writing xpath and also dont like large xpaths given by firebug just install an addon of firebug called as Firepath it will give you the shortest feasible xpath.
You can also go with other addons like Xpath Checker etc.

Selenium RC locators - referring to subsequent elements?

When there is more than a single element with the same locator in a page, how should the next elements be referenced?
Using Xpath locators it's possible to add array notation, e.g. xpath=(//span/div)[1]
But with simple locators?
For example, if there are 3 links identified by "link=Click Here", simply appending [3] won't get the 3rd element.
And where is the authoritative reference for addressing array of elements? I couldn't find any.
Selenium doesn't handle arrays of locators by itself. It just returns the first element that meets your query, so if you want to do that, you have to use xpath, dom or even better, css.
So for the link example you should use:
selenium.click("css=a:contains('Click Here'):nth-child(3)")
Santi is correct that Selenium returns the first element matching your specified locator and you have to apply the appropriate expression of the locator type you use. I thought it would be useful to give the details here, though, for in this case they do border on being "gory details":
CSS
The :nth-child pseudo-class is tricky to use; it has subtleties that are little-known and not clearly documented, even on the W3C pages. Consider a list such as this:
<ul>
<li class="bird">petrel</li>
<li class="mammal">platypus</li>
<li class="bird">albatross</li>
<li class="bird">shearwater</li>
</ul>
Then the selector css=li.bird:nth-child(3) returns the albatross element not the shearwater! The reason for this is that it uses your index (3) into the list of elements that are siblings of the first matching element--unfiltered by the .bird class! Once it has the correct element, in this example the third one, it then applies the bird class filter: if the element in hand matches, it returns it. If it does not, it fails to match.
Now consider the selector css=li.bird:nth-child(2). This starts with the second element--platypus--sees it is not a bird and comes up empty. This manifests as your code throwing a "not found" exception!
What might fit the typical mental model of finding an indexed entry is the CSS :nth-of-type pseudo-class which applies the filter before indexing. Unfortunately, this is not supported by Selenium, according to the official documentation on locators.
XPath
Your question already showed that you know how to do this in XPath. Add an array reference at any point in the expression with square brackets. You could, for example use something like this: //*[#id='abc']/div[3]/p[2]/span to find a span in the second paragraph under the 3rd div under the specified id.
DOM
DOM uses the same square bracket notation as XPath except that DOM indexes from zero while XPath indexes from 1: document.getElementsByTagName("div")[1] returns the second div, not the first div! DOM offers an alternate syntax as well: document.getElementsByTagName("div").item(0) is exactly equivalent. And note that with getElementsByTagName you always have to use an index since it returns a node set, not a single node.

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