selenium python xpath trouble finding element text() on page

Question

I'm trying to verify the text Active: from this example

<div class="details">
    <p class="double">
        <a href="url">Set as default</a>
        <br>
        <a id="modal124434" class="modalAction" href="#">Delete</a>
    </p>
    <span class="bold">TEXT</span>
    : 1234567890 (12/2017)
    <br>
    Active:
    <a class="game" href="#GAME">GAME</a>
</div>

I also need to check TEXT to make sure it's there. I used the following to find TEXT:

foo = b.find_element_by_xpath('//span[contains(text(),"TEXT")]/..')

and when I print(foo.text) I can see all the text from the html example abve. So, I thought I could do something like this:

b.find_element_by_xpath('//span[contains(text(),"TEXT")]/..[contains(text(),"Active:")]/a[text()="GAME"]

but I get a NoSuchElement exception. I've also tried:

b.find_element_by_xpath('//*[contains(text(),"Active")]')

and still got nothing. Any help would be much appreciated.

In this example, the text you are after is between two elements. Perhaps the answer here will be helpful: stackoverflow.com/questions/15813903/… — tim-mccurrach
– tim-mccurrach, Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 1:27
Which text are you trying to locate exactly? TEXT or Active: or GAME? — undetected Selenium
– undetected Selenium, Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 5:37
Do you need to get substring "Active:" from node or you need to locate element by substrings "TEXT" and "Active:"? — Andersson
– Andersson, Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 8:17
@debanjanbI and @Andersson was hoping to verify the text of all three in one xpath if possible. @Tim So once I've found the text()[2] how can I tell what text is in that element? — Roskoe
– Roskoe, Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 18:55
So it turns out for what I'm doing I don't actually need to verify the Active: text, because the <a> that has GAME in it will not appear if Active: isn't present. So I was able to use '//span[contains(.,"TEXT")]/../a[text()="GAME"]' — Roskoe
– Roskoe, Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 21:06

undetected Selenium · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-20 06:41:27Z

1

To print the element texts TEXT, Active: and GAME you can use the following code blocks :

To print TEXT :

print(b.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='details']//span[@class='bold']").get_attribute("innerHTML"))

To print Active: :

fullsting = b.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='details']").get_attribute("innerHTML")
part_word = fullsting.split(")")
words = part_word[1].split("G")
print(words[0])

To print GAME :

print(b.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='details']//a[@class='game']").get_attribute("innerHTML"))

answered Dec 20, 2017 at 6:41

undetected Selenium

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4 Comments

Roskoe Over a year ago

The innerHTML attribute is cool, I did not know about that, but I was hoping to use one xpath string to verify all three of these items at once.

undetected Selenium Over a year ago

@DanielWillemin Nice to know that. Did your Question get answered?

Roskoe Over a year ago

Sadly no, I did find a work around not involving the text Active: though.

Roskoe Over a year ago

Coming back to this, I have figured out a way to do what I originally wanted. I've posted my answer.

Ankur Singh · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-21 05:55:26Z

1

You can try this xpath :- //span/following-sibling::text()[2]

driver.find_element_by_xpath("//span/following-sibling::text()[2]").text ;

edited Dec 21, 2017 at 5:55

answered Dec 20, 2017 at 4:26

Ankur Singh

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3 Comments

Roskoe Over a year ago

once I've found the text()[2] how can I tell what text is in that element?

Roskoe Over a year ago

I get an exception when trying this

selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: TypeError: Argument 1 of Window.getComputedStyle does not implement interface Element.

Roskoe Over a year ago

I ended up using part of your answer for the work around that I used for this. I recently realized that I never posted my work around. I used the following xpath: '//span[text()="TEXT"]/following-sibling::a[text()="GAME"]'

Roskoe · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-14 17:48:28Z

1

Coming back to this I was able to find a way to do what I originally wanted

b.find_element_by_xpath('//span[contains(text(),"TEXT")]/..[contains(.,"Active:")]/a[text()="GAME"]')

it seems like using text() only looks into the first textNode that appears on that web element. but using . looks at all textNodes of that element as well as any textNodes that are attached to any childNode "beneath" the current element.

answered Sep 14, 2018 at 17:48

Roskoe

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