How to fetch all links and click those links one by one using Selenium WebDriver

Question

I am using Selenium WebDriver with java.

I am fetching all links from webpage and trying to click each link one by one. I am getting below error:

error org.openqa.selenium.StaleElementReferenceException: Element not found in the cache - perhaps the page has changed since it was looked up Command duration or timeout: 30.01 seconds For documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/stale_element_reference.html Build info: version: '2.25.0', revision: '17482', time: '2012-07-18 21:09:54'

and here is my code :

public void getLinks()throws Exception{
    try {
        List<WebElement> links = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));
        int linkcount = links.size(); 
         System.out.println(links.size()); 
          for (WebElement myElement : links){
         String link = myElement.getText(); 
         System.out.println(link);
         System.out.println(myElement);   
        if (link !=""){
             myElement.click();
             Thread.sleep(2000);
             System.out.println("third");
            }
            //Thread.sleep(5000);
          } 
        }catch (Exception e){
            System.out.println("error "+e);
        }
    }

actually, it's displaying in output

[[FirefoxDriver: firefox on XP (ce0da229-f77b-4fb8-b017-df517845fa78)] -> tag name: a]

as link, I want to eliminate these form result.

Ioan · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-20 08:35:18Z

9

There is no such a good idea to have following scenario :

for (WebElement element : webDriver.findElements(locator.getBy())){
  element.click();
}

Why? Because there is no guarantee that the element.click(); will have no effect on other found elements, so the DOM may be changed, so hence the StaleElementReferenceException.

It is better to use the following scenario :

int numberOfElementsFound = getNumberOfElementsFound(locator);
for (int pos = 0; pos < numberOfElementsFound; pos++) {
  getElementWithIndex(locator, pos).click();
}

This is better because you will always take the WebElement refreshed, even the previous click had some effects on it.

EDIT : Example added

  public int getNumberOfElementsFound(By by) {
    return webDriver.findElements(by).size();
  }

  public WebElement getElementWithIndex(By by, int pos) {
    return webDriver.findElements(by).get(pos);
  }

Hope to be enough.

edited Nov 20, 2012 at 8:35

answered Nov 19, 2012 at 11:59

Ioan

5,1873 gold badges33 silver badges51 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Shammi Over a year ago

can pls give me one sample example of above scenario. It will really appreciable. thanks.

Shammi Over a year ago

@loan I am still struggling, didn't get through. May be because I'm new to selenium driver. loop is running 4 times after that it sending following error <blockquote>'error org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotVisibleException: Element is not currently visible and so may not be interacted with Command duration or timeout: 30.05 seconds Build info: version: '2.25.0', revision: '17482', time: '2012-07-18 21:09:54' System info: os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch: 'x86', os.version: '6 >

Ioan Over a year ago

Well this is a different problem than StaleElementReferenceException. It means that you are trying to access an element which is not visibile, and most probably which is made visibile by another element. So first you have to identify which is this element, and then to make sure that it is visibile before to perform any actions on it. Or if is not mandatory, you can use .isDisplayed() method, to check if this element is proper, and then continue.

user790049 Over a year ago

Perfect Loan, I added driver.navigate().back()

user790049 · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-23 21:12:06Z

Credit goes to "loan".

I am also getting "stale exception" so I used 'loan' answer and works perfectly. Just if anyone need to know how to click on each link from results page try this (java)

clickAllHyperLinksByTagName("h3"); where "h3" tag contains hyperlink

 public static void clickAllHyperLinksByTagName(String tagName){
    int numberOfElementsFound = getNumberOfElementsFound(By.tagName(tagName));
    System.out.println(numberOfElementsFound);
    for (int pos = 0; pos < numberOfElementsFound; pos++) {
        getElementWithIndex(By.tagName(tagName), pos).click();
        driver.navigate().back();
    }
}

public static int getNumberOfElementsFound(By by) {
    return driver.findElements(by).size();
}

public static WebElement getElementWithIndex(By by, int pos) {
    return driver.findElements(by).get(pos);
}

AbhilashGowda · Accepted Answer · 2023-04-27 10:16:54Z

2

@Then("^I will fetch the URL$") public void i_will_fetch_the_url() throws Throwable {

    List<WebElement> jobLinks =driver.findElements(By.tagName("loc"));
    
    List<String> texts = new ArrayList<String>();
    
    for (WebElement element : jobLinks) {
        texts.add(element.getText());
    }

    for(String text:texts) {

    System.out.println(text);
        Base.driver.get(text);
        
    }

edited Apr 27, 2023 at 10:16

answered Apr 17, 2023 at 3:07

AbhilashGowda

315 bronze badges

2 Comments

MadMike Over a year ago

Downvoting. Your answer is missing important parts.

kleopatra Over a year ago

please edit the answer to include clarifications (vs. doing so in a comment)

Anand Somani · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-19 08:12:34Z

1

    WebDriver _driver = new InternetExplorerDriver();
    _driver.navigate().to("http://www.google.co.in/");
    List <WebElement> alllinks = _driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));

    for(int i=0;i<alllinks.size();i++)
        System.out.println(alllinks.get(i).getText());

    for(int i=0;i<alllinks.size();i++){
        alllinks.get(i).click();
        _driver.navigate().back();
    }

answered Nov 19, 2012 at 8:12

Anand Somani

7991 gold badge7 silver badges15 bronze badges

1 Comment

EdC Over a year ago

I don't think that will work, having navigated away won't you get a stale object exception? I think you have to look up all the links each time, take an object and ignore the rest.

PAdamB · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-03 15:42:11Z

1

If you're OK using WebDriver.get() instead of WebElement.click() to test the links, an alternate approach is to save the href value of each found WebElement in a separate list. This way you avoid the StaleElementReferenceException because you're not trying to reuse subsequent WebElements after navigating away with the first WebElement.click().

Basic example:

List<String> hrefs = new ArrayList<String>();
List<WebElement> anchors = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));
for ( WebElement anchor : anchors ) {
    hrefs.add(anchor.getAttribute("href"));
}
for ( String href : hrefs ) {
    driver.get(href);           
}

answered Apr 3, 2014 at 15:42

PAdamB

111 bronze badge

Comments

anuja jain · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-26 06:19:11Z

0

//extract the link texts of each link element
        for (WebElement elements : linkElements) {
            linkTexts[i] = elements.getText();
            i++;
        }

        //test each link
        for (String t : linkTexts) {
            driver.findElement(By.linkText(t)).click();
            if (driver.getTitle().equals(notWorkingUrlTitle )) {
                System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
                        + " is not working.");
            } else {
                System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
                        + " is working.");
            }
            driver.navigate().back();
        }
        driver.quit();
    }

For complete Explanation Read This POST

answered Oct 26, 2016 at 6:19

anuja jain

1,37713 silver badges21 bronze badges

Comments

manub · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-05 22:04:30Z

0

List <WebElement> links = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));                 
int linkCount=links.size();

System.out.println("Total number of page on the webpage:"+ linkCount);
String[] texts=new String[linkCount];
int t=0;
for (WebElement text:links){
  texts[t]=text.getText();//extract text from link and put in Array
  //System.out.println(texts[t]);
  t++;
}
for (String clicks:texts) {

  driver.findElement(By.linkText(clicks)).click();
  if (driver.getTitle().equals("notWorkingUrlTitle" )) {
    System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
    + " is not working.");
  } else {
    System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
                       + " is working.");
  }

  driver.navigate().back();
}

driver.quit();

edited Apr 5, 2017 at 22:04

manub

4,1102 gold badges27 silver badges35 bronze badges

answered Apr 5, 2017 at 21:57

Anjuman

1

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to fetch all links and click those links one by one using Selenium WebDriver

7 Answers 7

4 Comments

Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

7 Answers 7

4 Comments

Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related