How to click on the span element using Selenium and Python

Question

I'm trying to identify the following element but no matter the method it doesn't see it.

<span onclick="onClickTab('details'); return false;" id = "details" name = "details" class style ="display: inline;"">...</span>

I've tried with: Xpath, relative xpath, onclick, onclick contains, by id, by name, just nothing works. It is a clickable button which appears after selecting an item in a list.

Current code is:

try:
WebDriverWait(driver,30).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH,"//span[@onclick='onClickTab('details'); return false;']")))
except
print("Error")

driver.find_element_by_xpath("//span[@onclick='onClickTab('details'); return false;']").click()

if there are any minor syntax problems like a "(" or such it might be because I typed it by hand, that shouldn't be the issue. I'm forever grateful if you could point me to the right direction.

You should be able to ask the browser what the button's exact xpath is. Usually this is done by right-clicking the button and choosing "inspect". — John Gordon, Jun 30 '20 at 19:27
It's the only place in the webpage where I can't right click. I have gone through the code to find that reference to it. — IceSC, Jun 30 '20 at 19:43
I've also tried with the devtools CTRL+Shift+C and going to the element. Neither css selector nor the xpatjh are working. The same error is given: " Unable to locate element" — IceSC, Jun 30 '20 at 19:56

zmike · Answer 1 · 2020-06-30T21:38:32.547

0

I was able to select the element using the following xPath:

//span[contains(@onclick, "onClickTab(\'details\'); return false;")]

Using selenium, I used:


try:
    WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH,'//span[@onclick="onClickTab(\'details\'); return false;"]')))
except:
    print("Error")

driver.find_element_by_xpath('//span[@onclick="onClickTab(\'details\'); return false;"]').click()

edited Jun 30 '20 at 21:38

answered Jun 30 '20 at 20:30

zmike

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Doesn't work :( . I've tried every possible combination. I was able to acces every element until now but this one. Could it be something that is locked into a frame? But I think I did select the frame of the entire page. – IceSC Jun 30 '20 at 20:54

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 30 '20 at 21:16

To click on the <span> element instead of presence_of_element_located() you have to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using CSS_SELECTOR:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "span#details[name='details'][onclick^='onClickTab']"))).click()

Using XPATH:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//span[@id='details' and @name='details'][starts-with(@onclick, 'onClickTab')]"))).click()

Note : You have to add the following imports :

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 01 '20 at 05:00

Here i suggest you to use id in Xpath.

driver.find_element_by_xpath("//span[contains(@id,'details')]").click()

if multiple element is there then you have to use foreach loop of driver.find_elements_by_xpath("//span[contains(@id,'details')]") and check with text and click on match element.

How to click on the span element using Selenium and Python

3 Answers3