Retrieve ID of any element using webdriver in python given value of the element

Question

I am using selenium to record testcases in firefox. It records a button click/or any action for that matter like below,

driver = self.driver
driver.get(self.base_url + "/")
driver.find_element_by_id("ctl00__mainContent_lnkforgotpassword").click()
driver.find_element_by_id("ctl00__mainContent_ucForgotPassword1_btnNext").click()

Here the driver makes use of the find_element_by_id method to access the element and it works great.

But my requirement is to find this Id given just the text of that element, like -

If Forgot Password is a link and I want to retrieve the ID of this link, I would modify the about code as,

driver.find_element_by_id(getID("Forgot Password")).click().

So is there a way to write getId() function so as to retrieve the ID of the link Forgot Password (Or Id of some Label/Button in other cases) from the current open page?

Naveen Kumar R B · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-22 06:47:04Z

13

There is no way to retrieve the ID (or any attribute) directly the way you mentioned.

But, you can find any attribute/property of a web element once you find that web element only.

do as follows:

elem = driver.find_element_by_link_text("Forgot Password") / returns Web Element, store it in some variable.
print elem.get_attribute("id")
print elem.get_property("id") // or use get_property

Reference:

http://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/api.html#module-selenium.webdriver.remote.webelement

edited Nov 22, 2016 at 6:47

answered Nov 22, 2016 at 6:30

Naveen Kumar R B

6,4385 gold badges36 silver badges68 bronze badges

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

3 Comments

Vinay Over a year ago

That works fine for links. What about any other element, like a button, label,etc

Naveen Kumar R B Over a year ago

same way you did for link text. First, identify the element using one of its attributes (class, text, link text, name etc.) then you can retrieve ID from that Web Element if present.

Naveen Kumar R B Over a year ago

find_element_*() API returns WebElement, which you can use to retrieve properties/attributes of the web element using WebElement API. Added reference URL for WebElement API in the answer.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:00:35Z

0

There are two steps you need to do: 1. Get the element by link text 2. From that element get the attribute value of id.

You can try something similar to the below code to create your function: (Note: Below code is JAVA, you would need to write the similar python code)

WebElement ele = driver.findElement(By.linkText("Forgot Password"));
ele.getAttribute("id");

Below links will help as a reference:

How to grab just element id - using Selenium WebDriver 2

http://www.software-testing-tutorials-automation.com/2014/01/how-to-locate-element-by-link-text-or.html

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:00

CommunityBot

11 silver badge

answered Nov 22, 2016 at 6:27

Spandan Thakur

3682 silver badges16 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Retrieve ID of any element using webdriver in python given value of the element

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

3 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related