How to get text with Selenium WebDriver in Python

I’m trying to get text using Selenium WebDriver and here is my code. Please note that I don’t want to use XPath, because in my case the ID gets changed on every relaunch of the web page.

My code:

text = driver.find_element_by_class_name("current-stage").getText("my text")

HTML:

<span class="current-text" id="yui_3_7_0_4_1389185744113_384">my text</span>

How can I fix this?

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

You want just .text.

You can then verify it after you’ve got it, don’t attempt to pass in what you expect it should have.

Method 2

Python

element.text

Java

element.getText()

C#

element.Text

Ruby*

element.text

Method 3

To print the text my text you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using class_name and get_attribute("textContent"):

  print(driver.find_element(By.CLASS_NAME, "current-stage").get_attribute("textContent"))

• Using css_selector and get_attribute("innerHTML"):

  print(driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "span.current-stage").get_attribute("innerHTML"))

• Using xpath and text attribute:

  print(driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//span[@class='current-stage']").text)

Ideally you need to induce WebDriverWait for the visibility_of_element_located() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using CLASS_NAME and get_attribute("textContent"):

  print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CLASS_NAME, "current-stage"))).get_attribute("textContent"))

• Using CSS_SELECTOR and text attribute:

  print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "span.current-stage"))).text)

• Using XPATH and get_attribute("innerHTML"):

  print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//span[@class='current-stage']"))).get_attribute("innerHTML"))

• Note : You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

You can find a relevant discussion in How to retrieve the text of a WebElement using Selenium – Python

References

Link to useful documentation:

• get_attribute() method Gets the given attribute or property of the element.
• text attribute returns The text of the element.
• Difference between text and innerHTML using Selenium

Method 4

The answer is:

driver.find_element_by_class_name("ctsymbol").text

Method 5

You can use:

element = driver.find_element_by_class_name("class_name").text

This will return the text within the element and will allow you to verify it after that.

Method 6

This is the correct answer. It worked!!

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait

driver = webdriver.Chrome("E:\Python\selenium\webdriver\chromedriver.exe")
driver.get("https://www.tatacliq.com/global-desi-navy-embroidered-kurta/p-mp000000000876745")
driver.set_page_load_timeout(45)
driver.maximize_window()
driver.implicitly_wait(2)
driver.get_screenshot_as_file("E:\Python\Tatacliq.png")
print ("Executed Successfully")
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='pdp-promo-title pdp-title']").click()
SpecialPrice = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='pdp-promo-title pdp-title']").text
print(SpecialPrice)

Method 7

I’ve found this absolutely invaluable when unable to grab something in a custom class or changing id’s:

driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'Show Next Date Available')]").click()
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'Show Next Date Available')]").text
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'Available')]").text
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(text(), 'Avail')]").text

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0