Locating UI Elements

·         Locating UI Elements (Web Elements)

Fine, Now our project setup is ready, So that we can go ahead with creating the scripts and execution, But before that it is necessary to know, how WebDriver able to identify the UI elements

Locating elements in WebDriver can be done on the WebDriver instance itself or on a WebElement. Each of the language bindings exposes a “Find Element” and “Find Elements” method.

FindElement : It  returns a WebElement object otherwise it throws an exception

findElements: The latter returns a list of WebElements, it can return an empty list if no DOM elements match the query.

The “Find” methods take a locator or query object called “By”. “By” strategies are listed below.

1.  BY ID : This is the most efficient and preferred way to locate an element.

     Example: 

   

2. By Class Name

“Class” in this case refers to the attribute on the DOM element. Often in practical use there are many DOM elements with the same class name, thus finding multiple elements becomes the more practical option over finding the first element

      3. By Tag Name

         The DOM Tag Name of the element.

         

     4. By Name

          Find the input element with matching name attribute.

      

5. By Link Text

     Find the link element with matching visible text.

   Source:  

    Ex :         

6. By Partial Link Text

Find the link element with partial matching visible text.

Source: 

 Example:

7. By CSS

Like the name implies it is a locator strategy by css

Ex:

 

8. By XPATH

At a high level, WebDriver uses a browser’s native XPath capabilities wherever possible. On those browsers that don’t have native XPath support, we have provided our own implementation. This can lead to some unexpected behaviour unless you are aware of the differences in the various XPath engines.

Ex  :