Selecting form element without id in PHP Mink?

Question

I'm experimenting with PHP Mink (installed as on nodejs cannot find module 'zombie' with PHP mink). I am trying to parse a webpage (which I have no control over), which has an element like this inside a form:

<input tabindex="5" value="Do Submit!" class="my_btn my_btn_2" type="submit"></input>

Notably, this <input> has neither id nor name, and so I cannot find a way to select this element.

I would rather avoid using XPath, because I wouldn't like to specifically specify a hierarchy path which can very well change in the future. I'd best like to look up a child inside the form, which has a value attribute with value Do Submit!, but I don't know how to specify that in Mink?

I created a minimal example demonstrating this; here is the HTML file:

selbtnnoid.htm

<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <style type="text/css">
        .my_form {
            width: 50%;
            border: 2px solid red;
        }
        .my_label {
            font-size: large;
        }
        .my_input_2 {
            font-size: medium;
        }
        .my_btn {
            background-color: yellow;
        }
        .my_btn_2 {
            font-size: large;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Hello World!</h1>
    <p>Here is the form:</p>
    <form method="post" action="wherever.php" id="my-form" class="my_form">
        <h1>Some form here:</h1>
        <p>
            <label for="my-input-txt">
                <span class="my_label">Some data:</span>
                <input name="my-input-txt" id="my-input-txt" placeholder=" Enter data. " class="my_input_2" tabindex="1" type="text"></input>
            </label>
        </p>
        <p>
            <input tabindex="5" value="Do Submit!" class="my_btn my_btn_2" type="submit"></input>
        </p>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

... and here is the PHP file:

test_php_mink_selbtnnoid.php

<?php

$nodeModPath = "/home/USERNAME/.nvm/versions/node/v4.0.0/lib/node_modules";
putenv("NODE_PATH=".$nodeModPath); # doesn't really help; use setNodeModulesPath

# composer autoload for mink:
require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$zsrv = new \Behat\Mink\Driver\NodeJS\Server\ZombieServer();
$zsrv->setNodeModulesPath($nodeModPath . "/"); # needs to end with a trailing '/'
$driver = new \Behat\Mink\Driver\ZombieDriver( $zsrv );
$session = new \Behat\Mink\Session($driver);

// start the session
$session->start();

//~ $session->visit('selbtnnoid.htm'); // nope; status code: 0 if just called locally
//~ $session->visit('file:///path/to/selbtnnoid.htm'); // nope; Error: listen EADDRINUSE 127.0.0.1:8124
$session->visit('http://localhost:8090/selbtnnoid.htm'); // run php -S localhost:8090 in the folder with these two files

echo "  current URL: " . $session->getCurrentUrl() ."\n";
echo "  status code: " . $session->getStatusCode() ."\n";

$page = $session->getPage();
$myForm = $page->findById("my-form");
$myInput = $myForm->findField("my-input-txt");

# check if we have the element: // yes, displays 'my input tag is: input'
echo "my input tag is: ". $myInput->getTagName() ."\n";

# try to get the button:
$myBtn = $myForm->findField("Do Submit!");
echo "button selected by value is: " . var_export($myBtn, true) ."\n"; // NULL

$myBtn = $myForm->find('css', 'my_btn');
echo "button selected by css is: " . var_export($myBtn, true) ."\n"; // NULL
?>

The script outputs:

$ php test_php_mink_selbtnnoid.php 
  current URL: http://localhost:8090/selbtnnoid.htm
  status code: 200
my input tag is: input
button selected by value is: NULL
button selected by css is: NULL

So, how can I select / get a reference to this button element in this HTML file?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 26 '16 at 16:00

First you should identify a unique section if any, after that, identify your element. Here are some possible selectors:

css: #my-form input[type=submit]
css: #my-form input.my_btn
css: #my-form input.my_btn_2

xpath: //*[@id='my-form']//input[@type='submit']
xpath: //*[@id='my-form']//input[contains(@class, 'my_btn')]

if you have only one unique input in the page you can remove "my-form" part. You don't have to specify a hierarchy path in any case (xss, xpath), it may be a bad practice for automation. Also try to avoid using text in selectors if you know that it might change/translate.

Thanks for that, @lauda - I don't really have any other unique identificators, so the value text is really the only thing unique I can select for; although I appreciate the class contains selector, that may be of use. — sdbbs, May 27 '16 at 08:03

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 26 '16 at 12:06

Well, it seems XPath does work - and I think I managed to find a query which does not necessarily involve writing down the entire path to element from the root of the document; but I'm really bad at XPath, so I still hope for a more qualified answer. Anyways, what I did was add this to the OP script:

$myBtn = $myForm->find('xpath', '//*[@value="Do Submit!"]');
echo "button selected by xpath is: " . $myInput->getTagName() . "; with 'value': " . $myBtn->getAttribute('value') ."\n";

... which outputs:

button selected by xpath is: input; with 'value': Do Submit!

... which is what I needed...

Selecting form element without id in PHP Mink?

2 Answers2