How to click a button in an automated test using Selenium and Java

Question

I'm trying to automate a test using Selenium and I want to click a button using xpath. This is what I'm doing:

WebElement LogInButton = driver.findElement(By.xpath("/login"));
LogInButton.click();

But I get an error that says:

Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"xpath","selector":"/login"}

The only information I have about that button is this:

<a href="/login">Login</a>

and the URL where it redirects to. What am I doing wrong? What would be the correct way of referring to this button? Any help please let me know. Thanks

Answer 1

To invoke click() on the element you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using linkText:

  driver.findElement(By.linkText("Login")).click();
  

• Using cssSelector:

  driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("a[href='/login']")).click();
  

• Using xpath:

  driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[@href='/login' and text()='Login']")).click();
  

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Best practices

As you are invoking click() ideally you need to induce WebDriverWait for the elementToBeClickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using linkText:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.linkText("Login"))).click();
  

• Using cssSelector:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("a[href='/login']"))).click();
  

• Using xpath:

  new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.xpath("//a[@href='/login' and text()='Login']"))).click();
  

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Reference

You can find a couple of relevant discussions in:

• NoSuchElementException, Selenium unable to locate element
• Exception in thread “main” org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException: Unable to locate element: //*[@id='login-email']