How to find an element having random id attribute through Selenium

Question

How do I locate the input element by id where the last 2 numerical digits change randomly?

<input id="start-time-hours-c31" class="focused" name="startTimeHours" value="" placeholder="hh" maxlength="2" type="text">

Answer 1

Quick answer

When last 2 numerical digits change randomly,

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[contains(@id,'start-time-hours-c')]"));

Using 2 attributes of Input tag,

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@name='startTimeHours' and @class='focused']"));

Please let us know if it resolved your query.

Answer 2

As the last 2 characters of the id attribute changes randomly, additionally you need to consider some other attributes as well and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• cssSelector:

  WebElement elem = driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[id^='start-time-hours-c'][name='startTimeHours']"));
  

• xpath:

  WebElement elem = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[starts-with(@id, 'start-time-hours-c') and @name='startTimeHours']"));
  

Answer 3

As the html also has a name tag you can find the element by using that name tag, like:

WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.name("startTimeHours"));

And if the name tag startTimeHours is not unique on the page, then you can find the element by using the below xpath:

WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[contains(@id,'start-time-hours')]"));

Answer 4

Agreed with @TheSociety answer, you can also be used as the combination of name and id

//input[contains(@id,'start-time-hours-c') and contains(@name,'startTimeHours')]

Answer 5

Use contains, sibling or Ancestor when the value is dynamic.

xpath - //input[contsins(@id,'start-time-hours-c')]

Answer 6

You can use either of them:

 //input[starts-with(@id,'start-time-hours-c')]

(or)

 //input[contains(@id,'start-time-hours-c')]

if the above returns a single webelement then you can use it or else if it returns multiple elements go for name attribute in the xpath.