Unable to extract the text using gettext in Selenium WebDriver and also unable to click it

Question

I am not able to find the gettext of the below code in the Selenium WebDriver.

<a id="551" class="blueTextNormal1 spc" onclick="sPh(this,'079');return false;" title="079">Country</a>

I want to get the value of Country. I tried using the xpath:

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='551']").getText())

but it is not returning any value. When I tried with

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='551']")).getAttribute("title"))

I am getting the value as "079".

How can I to proceed?

It's also working for me using xpath: driver.find_element(:xpath, "//a[@id='551']").text — Alpha, May 23 '13 at 10:49
@TDHM The one which you specified will not work for Java as well as OP. — Vignesh Paramasivam, Aug 12 '14 at 15:10
Plenty of answers here, but no discussion of which approach is better than the other. Refer the differences between "innerText", "textContent" etc. from here https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21311299/nodevalue-vs-innerhtml-and-textcontent-how-to-choose and also https://medium.com/better-programming/whats-best-innertext-vs-innerhtml-vs-textcontent-903ebc43a3fc. — MasterJoe, Mar 17 '20 at 05:26
Possible duplicate: *[How to gettext() of an element in Selenium Webdriver](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22087952/how-to-gettext-of-an-element-in-selenium-webdriver)* — Peter Mortensen, Nov 22 '20 at 07:42

score 31 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:16

31

It depends on the code as well. Give a try with the below code:

Instead of getText(), please use getAttribute("innerHTML") which will then return what you are looking for, including any HTML that is invisible.

<div class="no-docs-selected">
    <p class="icon-alert">Please select a doc</p>
</div>

I was looking for Please select a doc, but I didn't succeed with getText(). But the below one worked.

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//p[@class='icon-alert']")).getAttribute("innerHTML");

edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 14 '14 at 13:31

satender

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hi @joe I am new to selenium, whatever you have suggested has worked for me but i don't have any clarification and i.e. when to go for getAttribute("atrb") and when to go for getText()? I tried to search for the reason but couldn't find any concrete results. – Abhishek May 23 '20 at 05:40

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:34

18

I faced the same issue, and then I updated .getText() to .getAttribute("textContent") and it worked.

edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:34

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 22 '17 at 08:32

Ami Desai

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6

Where does the attribute name *"textContent"* come from? Is it literal? – Peter Mortensen Dec 02 '20 at 12:36
That shall be an attribute in the HTML for the field. – Surendra Anand Dec 19 '21 at 02:49
[for python devs] I just tried `.get_attribute("textContent")`, and it is working fine for me too. Thanks – Darkstar Dream Feb 13 '23 at 12:42

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:11

1

It is really surprising you are able to get attribute title, but not text.

Try with

driver.findelement(By.xpath("//a[@id='551' and contains(text(),'Country')]")).isDisplayed();

or

driver.findelement(By.xpath("//a[@id='551' and text()='Country']")).isDisplayed();

edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:11

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 23 '13 at 06:50

Arun

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Hi Arun, Thanks for Replying [link](driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[@id='551' and contains(text(),'Country')]")).isDisplayed());) iam getting False I Think because of onclick="sPh(this,'079') we are getting as "false" and if iam trying driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[@id='551']")).click() getting error. org.openqa.selenium.ElementNotVisibleException: Element is not currently visible and so may not be interacted with Command duration – Learner May 23 '13 at 15:46
Hi Everyone, this is the website http://www.redbus.in/ here i want to take the phone numbers of each city. The phone numbers will come after when we click on each city . eg. Ahmedabad,Bangalore etc.. Hopes so this helps to understand the application. – Learner May 24 '13 at 05:01

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:38

I also had a case where getAttribute("innerHTML") worked, but not getText(). It turned out that the element was present, but it was not visible or displayed.

When I scrolled to the element first before calling getText() it worked.

    if(!element.isDisplayed()) 
        scrollIntoView(element);
    element.getText();

The scrollIntoView function is like this:

    public void scrollIntoView(WebElement element) {
        ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", element);
    }

I therefore don't need to use getAttribute("innerHTML")`.

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Jun 07 '21 at 08:35

This worked for me:

System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.id("error")).getAttribute("textContent"));

Code:

driver.get("https://login.salesforce.com/");
driver.findElement(By.id("username")).sendKeys("Hello");
driver.findElement(By.id("password")).sendKeys("Hello");
driver.findElement(By.id("Login")).click();
System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.id("error")).getAttribute("textContent"));
driver.close();

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:15

0

Unless it is a typo while copying to Stack Overflow, you are missing a parentheses before getText. Change driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='551']").getText()) to driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='551']")).getText()

I tried the following code, and it worked perfectly for me.

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.get("C:\\test.html");
System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='551']")).getText());
System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*@id='551']")).getAttribute("title"));

edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:15

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 23 '13 at 15:52

Buddha

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Thanks @buddha, i have tested, only the getattribute is returning the value as 079 but not the getText(); i have tested using By.xpath("//a[@id='551' and text()='Country']")).isDisplayed();it is returning false – Learner May 23 '13 at 16:04
1

Finally i was able to solve the issue the element was hidden so i used the `WebElement labelNode = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='551']")); String labelNodeText = (String) ((JavascriptExecutor)driver).executeScript("return arguments[0].innerHTML",labelNode); ` was able to return the required ahmedabad. Thanks to everyone who helped me. – Learner May 25 '13 at 09:20

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 07 '21 at 08:37

0

Use <WebElement>.getAttribute("value") to extract the text.

edited Jun 07 '21 at 08:37

Matt

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answered Aug 31 '16 at 07:51

Syagin Kumar

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score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:32

0

String text1 = driver.findElementByXPath("//input[@value='EFASTGTC']/../ancestor::tr[1]/scipt[1]").getAttribute("innerText"); 
        
System.out.println("Value=" + text1);

This code will work if you want text written between script tag.

edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:32

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 03 '17 at 06:04

Mahesh Chaudhary

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score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Jun 14 '22 at 05:18

0

This worked for me. I used getAttribute("innerText") instead of getText().

System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.id("modalError")).getAttribute("innerText"));

edited Jun 14 '22 at 05:18

Jesse

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answered Jun 13 '22 at 11:24

Rekha Rajasekaran

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1

please format the code snippet (as .. well .. code :) to make it readable – kleopatra Jun 13 '22 at 11:37

score -1 · Answer 10 · edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:32

-1

In a similar situation, this worked for me:

.getAttribute("innerHTML");
.getAttribute("innerText");
.getAttribute("outerText");

edited Dec 02 '20 at 12:32

Peter Mortensen

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answered Dec 22 '16 at 21:58

user7332079

11

This is hardly an answer. On what do you call these methods? A WebElement? If so, how do you find that? Also note that an attribute is different from an element's text content. – Robert Dec 22 '16 at 22:06

Unable to extract the text using gettext in Selenium WebDriver and also unable to click it

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