How to extract the text from the HTML using Selenium and Python

Question

I have this HTML:

And I want get this text "rataoriginal". (This text changes, I need this part of the code as text)

I've tried

xpath = "//span[@class='_5h6Y_ _3Whw5 selectable-text invisible-space copyable-text']"
auxa = driver.find_element_by_xpath(xpath).text
print(auxa)

But it prints the same as print("\n"). I don't want to use beaultifulsoup for a while.

This HTML is from 'https://web.whatsapp.com'

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 16 '20 at 07:19

0

//*[contains(text(),"rataoriginal")] please use this xpath

answered Jul 16 '20 at 07:19

Justin Lambert

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Hello. I don't wanna to select this element, I need to get this text, it means that this text will change. – Victor Coutinho Jul 16 '20 at 07:27
you can get that text by gettext(); in selenium – Justin Lambert Jul 16 '20 at 08:12

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 16 '20 at 12:54

The WebElement is a dynamic element, so to print the values you have to induce WebDriverWait for the visibility_of_element_located() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using CSS_SELECTOR:

print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "span.selectable-text.invisible-space.copyable-text[dir='auto']"))).text)

Using XPATH:

print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//span[contains(@class, '') and contains(@class, 'invisible-space')][contains(@class, '') and @dir='auto']"))).text)

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

References

You can find a relevant discussion in:

How to retrieve the text of a WebElement using Selenium - Python

How to extract the text from the HTML using Selenium and Python

2 Answers2

References