How to check for an element that may not exist using Cypress

Question

I am writing a Cypress test to log in to a website. There are username and password fields and a Submit button. Mostly logins are straightforward, but sometimes a warning dialog appears first that has to be dismissed.

I tried this:

cy.get('#login-username').type('username');
cy.get('#login-password').type(`password{enter}`);

// Check for a possible warning dialog and dismiss it
if (cy.get('.warning')) {
  cy.get('#warn-dialog-submit').click();
}

Which works fine, except that the test fails if the warning doesn't appear:

CypressError: Timed out retrying: Expected to find element: '.warning', but never found it.

Then I tried this, which fails because the warning doesn't appear fast enough, so Cypress.$ doesn't find anything:

cy.get('#login-username').type('username');
cy.get('#login-password').type(`password{enter}`);

// Check for a possible warning dialog and dismiss it
if (Cypress.$('.warning').length > 0) {
  cy.get('#warn-dialog-submit').click();
}

What is the correct way to check for the existence of an element? I need something like cy.get() that doesn't complain if the element can't be found.

Answer 1

    export function clickIfExist(element) {
        cy.get('body').then((body) => {
            if (body.find(element).length > 0) {
                cy.get(element).click();
            }
        });
    }

Answer 2

Use element polling and to check without failing the test.

Within a maximum wait time, either the dialog never arrives or this code dismisses it.

cy.get('#login-username').type('username');
cy.get('#login-password').type(`password{enter}`);

const ifElementExists = (selector, attempt = 0) => {
  if (attempt === 100) return null           // no appearance, return null
  if (Cypress.$(selector).length === 0) {
    cy.wait(100, {log:false})                // wait in small chunks
    getDialog(selector, ++attempt)           // try again
  }
  return cy.get(selector, {log:false})       // done, exit with the element
}

ifElementExists('.warning').then($el => {
  if ($el?.length) {
    $el.find('#warn-dialog-submit').click()
  }
})

Answer 3

export const getEl = name => cy.get(`[data-cy="${name}"]`)

export const checkIfElementPresent = (visibleEl, text) => {
   cy.document().then((doc) => {
     if(doc.querySelectorAll(`[data-cy=${visibleEl}]`).length){
      getEl(visibleEl).should('have.text', text)

      return ;
   }
getEl(visibleEl).should('not.exist')})}

Answer 4

The hasClass() or for CSS selector has() is an inbuilt method in jQuery which checks whether the elements with the specified class name exists or not. You can then return a boolean to perform assertion control.

Cypress.Commands.add('isExistElement', selector => {
  cy.get('body').then(($el) => {
    if ($el.has(selector)) {
      return true
    } else {
      return false
    }
  })
});

Then, it can be made into a special cypress method with TypeScript file (index.d.ts) file and can be in the form of a chainable.

declare namespace Cypress {
    interface Chainable {
        isExistElement(cssSelector: string): Cypress.Chainable<boolean>
    }
}

As in the example below:

shouldSeeCreateTicketTab() {  
  cy.isExistElement(homePageSelector.createTicketTab).should("be.true");
}

Answer 5

I have done it with pure js.

cy.get('body').then((jqBodyWrapper) => {

               if (jqBodyWrapper[0].querySelector('.pager-last a')) {
                   cy.get('.pager-last a').then(jqWrapper => {
                       // hardcoded due to similarities found on page

                       const splitLink = jqWrapper[0].href.split("2C");
                       AMOUNT_OF_PAGES_TO_BE_RETRIEVED = Number(splitLink[splitLink.length - 1]) + 1;
                   })
               } else {
                   AMOUNT_OF_PAGES_TO_BE_RETRIEVED = 1;
               }
           });

I'm trying to check if element exists on body

cy.get('body').then((jqBodyWrapper) => {

With a pure js querySelector

if (jqBodyWrapper[0].querySelector('.pager-last a')) {

Then I fire my cy.get

cy.get('.pager-last a').then(jqWrapper => {

Answer 6

Note that you might need to wait enough time until the element is added to the DOM, and should do this asynchronously:

describe(`App content suite`, () => {
    it('app logs in correctly', () => {         
        console.log('Checking if warning needs to be closed');

        const enoughTimeUntilWarningIsAddedToDom = 5000;
        cy.wait(enoughTimeUntilWarningIsAddedToDom);

        (async () => {
            const elementExists = await clickIfElementExists('.warning');

            if (elementExists) {
                console.log('element exists');
            } else {
                console.log('element does not exist');
            }
        })();
    }
}

function clickIfElementExists(elementSelector: string) {
    return new Promise(resolve => {
        cy.get('body').then((body) => {
            resolve(body.find(elementSelector).length > 0);
        });
    })
}