Selenium IDE | Locating the Elements
For many Selenium IDE commands, a target is required. This target identifies an element in the content of the web application and consists of the location strategy followed by the location in the format locatorType=location. The locator type can be omitted in many cases. The various locator types are explained below with examples for each.
- Locating by Identifier: This is probably the most common method of locating elements and is the catch-all default when no recognized locator type is used With this strategy, the first element with the id attribute value matching the location will be used. If no element has a matching id attribute, then the first element with a name attribute matching the location will be used.
For instance, page source could have id and name attributes as follows:
<html>
<body>
<form id=”loginForm”>
<input name=”username” type=”text” />
<input name=”password” type=”password” />
<input name=”continue” type=”submit” value=”Login” />
</form>
</body>
<html>
The following locator strategies would return the elements from the HTML snippet above indicated by line number:
- identifier=loginForm (3)
- identifier=password (5)
- identifier=continue (6)
- continue (6)
Since the identifier type of locator is the default, the identifier= in the first three examples above is not necessary.
- Locating by Id: This type of locator is more limited than the identifier locator type, but also more explicit. Use this when you know an element’s id attribute.
<html>
<body>
<form id=”loginForm”>
<input name=”username” type=”text” />
<input name=”password” type=”password” />
<input name=”continue” type=”submit” value=”Login” />
<input name=”continue” type=”button” value=”Clear” />
</form>
</body>
<html>
id=loginForm (3)
- Locating by Name: The name locator type will locate the first element with a matching name attribute. If multiple elements have the same value for a name attribute, then you can use filters to further refine location strategy. The default filter type is value (matching the value attribute).
<html>
<body>
<form id=”loginForm”>
<input name=”username” type=”text” />
<input name=”password” type=”password” />
<input name=”continue” type=”submit” value=”Login” />
<input name=”continue” type=”button” value=”Clear” />
</form>
</body>
<html>
- name=username (4)
- name=continue value=Clear (7)
- name=continue Clear (7)
- name=continue type=button (7)
This topic covers the following modules:
