Selenium findElement(By by) equivalent in Python

Question

Using Selenium (Python), how do we pass the By object to findElement()?

Java (this works)

By locater = By.id("username")
WebElement elem = driver.findElement(locater)
elem.SendKeys("tester")

Python (this fails)

locater = By.id("username")
elem = driver.find_element(locater)
elem.send_keys("tester")

Error i get in python is 'str' object is not callable. I looked this up in other SO conversations and its because python expects something like By.ID or By.XPATH etc.

I need a way to pass the By object and wondered it it is possible. Thanks in advance.

Andersson · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-11 13:44:38Z

3

In Python By.XPATH is not a method of class By(), but string variable:

By.XPATH == "xpath"

Try to implement below code:

from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

locator = (By.XPATH, oSignUp.listformfieldxpaths[0])
elem = oDriver.getdriver().find_element(*locator)
elem.send_keys("tester")

Note that find_element() should receive 2 arguments: by and value. Both are strings

edited Apr 11, 2017 at 13:44

answered Apr 11, 2017 at 13:33

Andersson

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3 Comments

Bipo K Over a year ago

Many Thanks @Andersson. Accepting this answer as closest to what i wanted. Would you mind describing why the * is prefixed to locater?

Andersson Over a year ago

as type of locator is tuple you need to use *locator syntax to unpack values from tuple. To be clear: find.element(locator) == find.element((By.XPATH, oSignUp.listformfieldxpaths[0])), find.element(*locator) == find.element(By.XPATH, oSignUp.listformfieldxpaths[0])

Bipo K Over a year ago

Thanks again @Andersson for the details & quick response. This has been very helpful indeed.

dylan_fan · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-11 13:36:34Z

1

I believe this should work. Give it a shot

xpath = oSignUp.listformfieldxpaths[0]
elem = oDriver.getdriver().find_element(By.XPATH, xpath)
elem.send_keys("tester")

answered Apr 11, 2017 at 13:36

dylan_fan

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Comments

Eknath · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-11 13:53:04Z

0

 web_element=driver.find_element(By.ID,'id_value')

or

web_element=driver.find_element('id','id_value')

find_element has two parameter first one is locator strategy and second one is locator value.

method signature

     def find_element(self, by=By.ID, value=None):

answered Apr 11, 2017 at 13:53

Eknath

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