How can I click on this link with selenium using python?

Question

I'm just a beginner with programming and I'm trying to learn how to automate web procedures. I am working based on https://www.coeweb.istat.it/.

I need to find elements of the page and I already tried with driver.find_element_by_xpath but since I'm not very familiar with html code, I'm not even sure to be using the right piece of code as argument for that method. Can someone please send me as an example of code to click on the link qui. in bold right in the middle of the page please? This is what I've tried:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
url = "https://www.coeweb.istat.it/"
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get(url)
link = driver.find_element_by_xpath('//[@id="AutoNumber1"]/tbody/tr[3]/td[2]/p[3]/font/a/strong')
link.click()

Still, I get the error as:

selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"xpath","selector":"//*[@id="AutoNumber1"]/tbody/tr[3]/td[2]/p[3]/font/a/strong"}

Answer 1

You have to wait until it will be clickable:

# I have fixed xpath
element = WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(
        EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//*[@id='AutoNumber1']//a[contains(., 'qui.')]"))
    )
element.click()

Note: you have to do some imports:

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

There is also possible to use CSS Selector to locate the element:

#AutoNumber1 > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td:nth-child(2) > p:nth-child(3) > font > a

and

element = WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(
        EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "#AutoNumber1 > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td:nth-child(2) > p:nth-child(3) > font > a"))
    )
element.click()

EDIT: you have to switch to the frame before locate your element like this:

driver.switch_to.frame(driver.find_element_by_xpath("//frame[@name = 'principale']"))

So the full code will be like this:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

url = "https://www.coeweb.istat.it/"
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get(url)

driver.switch_to.frame(driver.find_element_by_xpath("//frame[@name = 'principale']")) # switches to frame
element = WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(
        EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//*[@id='AutoNumber1']//a[contains(., 'qui.')]"))
    )
element.click()
driver.switch_to.default_content() # switch back to default content

Explanation: you cannot interact with the elements which are in iframe or in a frame. To be able to do this, you have to find a frame, switch to it, do stuff and then switch back to default content

Answer 2

As per the URL you have shared the link with text as qui. is withan a <frame>. So you have to switch to the desired frame inducing WebDriverWait and then again induce WebDriverWait while looking out for the element as follows:

• Code Block:

  from selenium import webdriver
  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  
  options = webdriver.ChromeOptions() 
  options.add_argument("start-maximized")
  options.add_argument('disable-infobars')
  driver=webdriver.Chrome(chrome_options=options, executable_path=r'C:\Utility\BrowserDrivers\chromedriver.exe')
  url = "https://www.coeweb.istat.it/"
  driver.get(url)
  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.frame_to_be_available_and_switch_to_it((By.NAME,"principale")))
  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//table[@id='AutoNumber1']//tr//td//p//a[@href='lnkdati.htm' and .//strong[contains(.,'qui.')]]"))).click()
  

• Browser Snapshot: