A walkthrough on different locator strategies when using with selenium

1. Techniques and tricks in using locators
-Sriram

2. Agenda
Ø What locators are?
Ø Different types of locators
Ø Walkthrough on css selectors and xpath
Ø Demo

3. What actually are locators ?

4. Different types of locators
Ø ID
Ø Name
Ø Link text
Ø Partial Link text
Ø Tag Name
Ø Class name
Ø Css
Ø Xpath

5. What is css selector

6. What is xpath

7. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href

8. Identify Elements with class attribute

9. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(”.banner"));
driver.findElement(By.xpath(”//div[@class=‘banner’"));

10. Identify Elements with ID attribute

11. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(”#banner"));
driver.findElement(By.xpath(”//div[@id=‘banner’]"));

12. Identify Elements by its type

13. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(”div"));
driver.findElements(By.xpath(”//div"));

14. Identify Elements with parent and child element
types

15. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(”tr > td"));
driver.findElements(By.xpath(”//tr/td"));

16. Identify Elements having a specific attribute

17. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(”[href]"));
driver.findElements(By.xpath(”//*[@href]"));

18. Identify Elements by what attribute value starts
with

19. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(”a[href^=‘in’]"));
driver.findElement(By.xpath(”//a[starts-with(@href,’in’)]"));

20. Identify Elements by what attribute value ends
with

21. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(”a[href$=‘favicon’]"));
driver.findElement(By.xpath(”//a[ends-with(@href,‘favicon’)]"));

22. Identify Elements by what attribute value contains

23. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(”a[href*=‘bookmyshow’]"));
driver.findElement(By.xpath(”//a[contains(@href,‘bookmyshow’]"));

24. Identify 2nd child of a parent element

25. HTML
BODY
DIV DIV DIV
DIV A A SPAN TABLE
TR
TD
TD
TD
TR
TD
TD
TD
class = banner id= banner
Attribute
href=“in.bookmyshow.com/f
avicon”
IMG
Attribute
href
driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(”td:nth-child(2)"));
driver.findElements(By.xpath(”//td[2]"));

28. https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/console/command-line-reference
http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_selectors.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_intro.asp

29. THANK YOU
sriramsb@thoughtworks.com
https://blogfromsriram.wordpress.com/