Use selenium to input multiple elements using xpath

Question

I'm new to Selenium so I'm not sure if this is the best way to approach the problem, but I'm looking for a way to use xpath (or css) to locate a series of input elements and somehow iterate over all of them and input some text into them.

Something like the following:

<form>
  value1 <input type="text" placeholder="value1"><br>
  value2 <input type="text" placeholder="value2"><br>
  value3 <input type="text" placeholder="value3"><br>
</form>

I am able to locate the elements using this:

var input = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@type='text']"))

I can input the first occurrence of the element found by xpath with the following:

input.sendKeys('Some text')

That's where I get stuck. I'm not sure how to enter values into the input fields after the first.

Ultimately, what I'd like to do is somehow send the text to all of the input fields located by the xpath filter. I was thinking it might be possible with a for loop but I'm not sure how to do it with the promise manager that webdriverjs uses.

Is this possible or is there a better way to do this?

There would be a findElements method the plural of what you are using. This will return a list which you can iterate and input the values.The singular findelement will always return the first matching element it finds in the page. — Grasshopper
– Grasshopper, Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 17:37
Thanks, that gets me further along. Still trying to figure out how to iterate over the elements. — jmreicha
– jmreicha, Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 17:58
Have a look at this answer stackoverflow.com/questions/18677516/finding-multiple-elements — Grasshopper
– Grasshopper, Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 18:07
@Grasshopper thanks, that post helped get me pointed in the right direction. — jmreicha
– jmreicha, Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 21:06

pretzo246 · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-19 18:08:23Z

1

You can do the following

driver.findElements(By.xpath("<xpath>")).then(function(elem) {
    for(var i=0; i<elem.length; i++){
        driver.findElements(By.xpath("<xpath>")).get(i).sendKeys('some Text');
    }
});

Just replace with the xpath of the elements that you are sending text too. Usually you can use .get() to choose a specific element from a list of elements returned from .findElements()

edited Oct 19, 2016 at 18:08

answered Oct 19, 2016 at 17:53

pretzo246

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5 Comments

jmreicha Over a year ago

Thanks for the response. I'm looking to send the text to all of the elements instead of a specific index. Is there an easy way to do that?

pretzo246 Over a year ago

You can iterate over all the elements returned from findElements() and then send it, but there is no way to send it all at once. You will have to use some form of iteration. :(

jmreicha Over a year ago

Good to know. I don't mind sending them separately so I'll try to figure out how to iterate over all the elements, I'm not sure how to do that.

jmreicha Over a year ago

It's not working for me, I'm probably doing something wrong. I'm going to keep looking at it.

jmreicha Over a year ago

I keep getting TypeError: driver.findElements(...).get is not a function.

Saurabh Gaur · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-20 03:22:58Z

1

You should try using forEach when the same action has to be taken for all elements having common selector as below :-

driver.findElements(By.css("input[type='text']")).then(function(elements) {
  elements.forEach(function (input) {
      input.sendKeys('Some text');
  })
});

Or if you want to do same using promise, you'll need a reference to Selenium's promise for that as below :-

var promise = require('selenium-webdriver').promise;
var elements = driver.findElements(By.css("input[type='text']"))
promise.all(elements).then(function (input) {
     input.sendKeys('Some text');
});

edited Oct 20, 2016 at 3:22

answered Oct 19, 2016 at 18:44

Saurabh Gaur

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4 Comments

jmreicha Over a year ago

.each seems like the cleanest approach but I am getting TypeError: elements.each is not a function, not sure why.

Saurabh Gaur Over a year ago

@jmreicha Sorry it should be forEach. Try with updated answer and let me know..

jmreicha Over a year ago

I thought so too but for some reason it's still not working :/ Getting TypeError: elements.forEach is not a function.

jmreicha Over a year ago

Your answer set me on the right path, I had to wrap elements in a promise and then I was able to use the forEach loop.

jmreicha · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-20 01:01:26Z

0

I figured it out with help from others in this post. Here is what the working code looks like:

driver.findElements(By.css("input[type='text']"))
.then(function (inputs) {
    inputs.forEach(function (input) {
        input.sendKeys(password)
    })
})

answered Oct 20, 2016 at 1:01

jmreicha

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