Best practice to wait for a change with Selenium Webdriver?

Question

After a click event I need to wait for an elements attribute to change before proceeding further (click event causes certain elements to move out of focus and certain others get focus via a JS)

After spending time searching for a reliable alternative to "waitForAttribute" (selenium 1 command) in web driver... I could get the below code to work. But I am not sure if this is the best implementation...

Any other better solution??

wait = new WebDriverWait(wedriver1, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));
.....
button.Click();
wait.Until(webdriver1 => webdriver2.webelement.GetAttribute("style").Contains("display: block"));

Also, can anyone please share a link to how I can handle AJAX event changes using webdriver.

http://assertselenium.com/2013/01/29/webdriver-wait-commands/ has a nice listing of possible wait methods and how they relate — Pat, May 06 '14 at 22:33
Archived versions of that page: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://assertselenium.com/2013/01/29/webdriver-wait-commands/ — Pat, Apr 27 '15 at 17:25

score 9 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 19 '17 at 08:12

9

I suggest use org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions.attributeToBe(WebElement element, String attribute, String value).

e.g.

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 5); // time out after 5 seconds
someElement.click();
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.attributeToBe(someElement, "sort-attribute", "ascending"));

(docs)

edited Jul 19 '17 at 08:12

Steve Cooper

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answered Sep 15 '16 at 20:44

jersey-city-ninja

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score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered May 03 '12 at 06:48

6

It's a recurring problem of Selenium. I am not sure about a "best" implementation existing. I believe it's largely depending on the situation.

Concerning AJAX-driven changes, I would generally use a waitForElementPresent or a waitForElementNotPresent depending on the changes the AJAX call will make on the page.

answered May 03 '12 at 06:48

Silver Quettier

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This will work, but only for situations where an element appears/disappears. There are many situations where an element remains visible but changes an attribute, which I think the OP was asking for, which these methods don't cover. – Vince Bowdren Apr 27 '15 at 09:32

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered May 04 '12 at 17:37

4

You can use implicit WebDriver wait :

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

An implicit wait is to tell WebDriver to poll the DOM for a certain amount of time when trying to find an element or elements if they are not immediately available.

More here: http://seleniumhq.org/docs/04_webdriver_advanced.html#implicit-waits

answered May 04 '12 at 17:37

Manpreet Singh

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Sorry, I don't think you understood my question. My elements attribute changes on a click event (driven by JS). I don't see how the implicit wait is useful here. From my understanding implicit wait is more relevant in case of elements being visible after an event. – Kir May 05 '12 at 05:58

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 07 '12 at 04:20

2

I feel that using the WebDriverWait is pretty useful. One change you can make in your code is use -

webelement.isDisplayed();

instead of getting the style attribute.

answered May 07 '12 at 04:20

Hari Reddy

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score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

0

You could use Thread.sleep like people have implemented here..You can use their implementations to relate to your problem.

    public void waitFor(Webdriver driver,,WebElement welElem, String attributeValue){
    int timeout=0;
    while(true){
        if(driver.webElem.getAttribute(attribute)!=null){
        break;
        }
        if(timeout>=10){
        break;
        }
        Thread.sleep(100);
        timeout++;
    }

}

I think you could implement something like this. I have not checked it but you get the idea.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

Community

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answered May 04 '12 at 11:17

John

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I believe this whole while loop is what the "wait.Until" I posted above is doing. So I don't see the point of writing this explicit while loop. I suppose my implementation which is working is a lot cleaner – Kir May 05 '12 at 05:55
1

`while(timeout<10)` and delete `if` statement. Just a note to your code. – Aleh Douhi May 05 '12 at 20:26

Best practice to wait for a change with Selenium Webdriver?

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