CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaxpathseleniumwebdriverhtml
mac
mac

Reputation: 930

webdriver click on a link in a webpage

I'm trying to click on a particular link in a webpage. Basically this is a Home button. So whereever I browse, I always find this button is same position. As of now I use driver.findElement(By.xpath("//span/ul/li/a")).click(); command to click on this, but this is not working in all the webpages even though the xpath don't change. here is the firebug view of the link.

enter image description here

the id is not static, it keeps on changing. So what are the other ways I can detect this link ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 201

Answers (2)

Spiff
Spiff

Reputation: 2286

As dirkk said, you can always locate an element through a By.linkText() selector, although this could be a fickle solution: the "home" link text could eventually change (in which case your selector won't work anymore), there could be other "home" links on the page (in which case you wouldn't necessarily obtain the element you want) or the "home" link text might be different in a different language (in which case your selector will only work when testing the English site).

If you have control over the generated HTML code, you should try adding a static ID or even a class to this link and look it up through a By.id() or By.cssSelector() selector.

If you don't, try using a selector that relies more on semantics (IDs and classes) than structure (tag hierarchies). That way your selector will be more stable and easier to understand as well. But in the end, that's not always possible if you test an untestable external website.

Upvotes: 2

dirkk
dirkk

Reputation: 6218

You can use By.linktext()

driver.findElement(By.linkText("Home")).click();

Upvotes: 4

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