How to return an empty List when nothing found

Question

I wonder how to return an empty List when i try to find some WebElement but nothing found. Of course i want to avoid crash so this is what i have try:

def getList(): List[WebElement] = {

    try {
      driver.fineElements(By.xpath("bla bla))
    }catch{
      case e: TimeoutException => // What should i put here ???
    }
  }

Duplicates this stackoverflow.com/a/6521834/21755 even more closely — The Archetypal Paul
– The Archetypal Paul, Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 14:01
Possible duplicate of WebDriver: check if an element exists? — Raidri
– Raidri, Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 16:08
The accepted answer is wrong.. it doesn't even work. Please accept Mobrockers answer. — JeffC
– JeffC, Commented Jun 30, 2016 at 23:56
Well, it works, in that there isn't an exception so there's no need to catch one. I'd delete it, though, as it doesn't really address the question, except that since it's accepted i can't :(. — The Archetypal Paul
– The Archetypal Paul, Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 6:53

Mobrockers · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-16 12:58:04Z

5

Edit:

I didn't notice you're using scala and not java, apologies, however it works the same in Scala. From the scala docs:

The findAll method returns an immutable IndexedSeq of all matching elements. If no elements match the query, findAll returns an empty IndexedSeq.

It already returns an empty list if no elements are found, and will not cause an exception.

The scala findAll method will do the same.

If you are not using scalatest but rather the Java selenium package, the same is still true. findElements will return an empty list when no elements are found and will never ever throw a TimeoutException.

edited Jun 16, 2016 at 12:58

answered Jun 16, 2016 at 12:20

Mobrockers

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4 Comments

The Archetypal Paul Over a year ago

The OP isn't using findAll

Mobrockers Over a year ago

There is no fineElement in selenium... From what I can gather from the docs, scala can use either findElements or findAll, they're the same. In both cases it will return an empty list and this try catch exception will never work as findElements or findAll do not throw an exception..

The Archetypal Paul Over a year ago

OK, gotcha. Since the OP specifies that getList returns a List[WebElement] we can assume he's using findElements, not findElement. So it will return an empty list as you say

JeffC Over a year ago

It's kinda silly to create a function for this... it's a one-liner.

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