Selenium Python not able to extract [object Text] It should be an element

Question

I am new to Selenium and I have been having a problem, I am trying to extract the the title "ferric maltol" as string, here:

https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/record/ui?ui=C062088

But I have been having lots of troubles with this.

Using the xpath in Python with several different attempts, but none work:

First attempt

to_store=driver.find_elements_by_xpath('/html/body/div[2]/h1/text()').get_attribute('textContent')

*** selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException: Message: invalid selector: The result of the xpath expression "/html/body/div[2]/h1/text()" is: [object Text]. It should be an element.

Second attempt

to_store=driver.find_elements_by_xpath('/html/body/div[2]/h1/text()').text

*** selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException: Message: invalid selector: The result of the xpath expression "/html/body/div[2]/h1/text()" is: [object Text]. It should be an element.

Third attempt

to_store=driver.find_elements_by_xpath('/html/body/div[2]/h1/text()').get_attribute('outerHTML')

selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException: Message: invalid selector: The result of the xpath expression "/html/body/div[2]/h1/text()" is: [object Text]. It should be an element.

Does anyone have a clue?

In this particular case even //h1 xpath selector should work: to_store=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//h1").text — Yevhen Danchenko
– Yevhen Danchenko, Commented May 13, 2020 at 4:54

AzyCrw4282 · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-13 03:04:58Z

2

As your XPath expression terminates with text(), this resolves to a text container, and not an HTML element (or list of). You therefore, get the above error.

driver = webdriver.Chrome('../chromedriver.exe') #set your path here
driver.get("https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/record/ui?ui=C062088")
driver.set_page_load_timeout(45)
driver.implicitly_wait(2)
SpecialPrice=driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div[2]/div/div/div[1]/div/dl/dd[1]").text
print(SpecialPrice)

Outputs

ferric maltol

Using the above method you pass in the full xpath and use the text attribute to get the value.

answered May 13, 2020 at 3:04

AzyCrw4282

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3 Comments

dtkx Over a year ago

Uoooooou! I see my mistake! thaanks so muuch! It worked really well, I also did not thought i would need a timeout and a wait. Thaaaanks it really helped!

Reenath Reddy Thummala Over a year ago

Same issue for me. I am trying to get "Snowden-Pencer" from accessgudid.nlm.nih.gov/devices/10885403151217. Can you help with the xPath here?

AzyCrw4282 Over a year ago

i need to see your code and see where you are going wrong. I would recommend asking it as a question and reply the link here so i can take a look at it.

NarendraR · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-13 08:53:34Z

0

Selenium won't allow you to locate an element using Text node. As an alternative you can use below javascript code to extract text

element = driver.find_element_by_css_selector('h1.ng-binding.ng-scope')
text = driver.execute_script("return arguments[0].childNodes[0].textContent", element);
print(text.strip())

Output:

ferric maltol

answered May 13, 2020 at 8:53

NarendraR

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1 Comment

dtkx Over a year ago

Thaaanks soo much! It fit like a glooove! I have to learn Java! It looks really handy! Thanks again i was pretty hopeless

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