How to click an element using Selenium Python

Question

So I have this element in HTML...

<a href="#" onclick="on_catolog(2);"><span style="font-size:11pt">Security</span></a>

... and I want to click it using Selenium in python. How can I do it? (Maybe I can identify it using onclick, but how?)

Also, here is what I've tried:

security = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//button[@onclick=\"on_catolog(2);\"]")
security.click()

Show how you tried. Share code – JaSON Nov 12 '20 at 11:18 — JaSON, Nov 12 '20 at 11:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 12 '20 at 12:15

1

You used wrong tag name in your XPath "//button[@onclick=\"on_catolog(2);\"]". It's not a button, but anchor tag. Try

"//a[@onclick='on_catolog(2);']"

Or click by link text:

security = driver.find_element_by_link_text("Security")
security.click()

answered Nov 12 '20 at 12:15

JaSON

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I get this error with both methods `NoSuchElementException` – chronovirus Nov 12 '20 at 12:31
@chronovirus what if to put `driver.implicitly_wait(10)` before searching for element? – JaSON Nov 12 '20 at 13:02

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 12 '20 at 14:38

To click on the element with text as Security you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using css_selector:

driver.find_element_by_css_selector("a[onclick^='on_catolog'] > span[style='font-size:11pt']").click()

Using xpath:

driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a[starts-with(@onclick, 'on_catolog')]/span[text()='Security']").click()

Ideally, to click on the element you need 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, "a[onclick^='on_catolog'] > span[style='font-size:11pt']"))).click()

Using XPATH:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//a[starts-with(@onclick, 'on_catolog')]/span[text()='Security']"))).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

How to click an element using Selenium Python

2 Answers2