Selenium: Element Locators

Defines an object that runs Selenium commands.

Element Locators

Element Locators tell Selenium which HTML element a command refers to. The format of a locator is:

locatorType=argument

We support the following strategies for locating elements:

identifier=id

Select the element with the specified @id attribute. If no match is found, select the first element whose @name attribute is id. (This is normally the default; see below.)

id=id

Select the element with the specified @id attribute.

name=name

Select the first element with the specified @name attribute.

• username
• name=username

The name may optionally be followed by one or more element-filters, separated from the name by whitespace. If the filterType is not specified, value is assumed.

• name=flavour value=chocolate

dom=javascriptExpression

Find an element by evaluating the specified string. This allows you to traverse the HTML Document Object Model using JavaScript. Note that you must not return a value in this string; simply make it the last expression in the block.

• dom=document.forms['myForm'].myDropdown
• dom=document.images[56]
• dom=function foo() { return document.links[1]; }; foo();

xpath=xpathExpression

Locate an element using an XPath expression.

• xpath=//img[@alt='The image alt text']
• xpath=//table[@id='table1']//tr[4]/td[2]

link=textPattern

Select the link (anchor) element which contains text matching the specified pattern.

• link=The link text

css=cssSelectorSyntax

Select the element using css selectors. Please refer to CSS2 selectors, CSS3 selectors for more information. You can also check the TestCssLocators test in the selenium test suite for an example of usage, which is included in the downloaded selenium core package.

• css=a[href="#id3"]
• css=span#firstChild + span

Currently the css selector locator supports all css1, css2 and css3 selectors except namespace in css3, some pseudo classes(:nth-of-type, :nth-last-of-type, :first-of-type, :last-of-type, :only-of-type, :visited, :hover, :active, :focus, :indeterminate) and pseudo elements(::first-line, ::first-letter, ::selection, ::before, ::after).

Without an explicit locator prefix, Selenium uses the following default strategies:

• dom, for locators starting with "document."
• xpath, for locators starting with "//"
• identifier, otherwise

Element Filters

Element filters can be used with a locator to refine a list of candidate elements. They are currently used only in the 'name' element-locator.
Filters look much like locators, ie.

filterType=argument

Supported element-filters are:
value=valuePattern

Matches elements based on their values. This is particularly useful for refining a list of similarly-named toggle-buttons.

index=index

Selects a single element based on its position in the list (offset from zero).

String-match Patterns

Various Pattern syntaxes are available for matching string values:

glob:pattern

Match a string against a "glob" (aka "wildmat") pattern. "Glob" is a kind of limited regular-expression syntax typically used in command-line shells. In a glob pattern, "*" represents any sequence of characters, and "?" represents any single character. Glob patterns match against the entire string.

regexp:regexp

Match a string using a regular-expression. The full power of JavaScript regular-expressions is available.

exact:string

Match a string exactly, verbatim, without any of that fancy wildcard stuff.

If no pattern prefix is specified, Selenium assumes that it's a "glob" pattern.