I'm new to python and webscraping so I'm not sure what the name of the value inbetween the <div>'s in an element is called. Sorry for not being able to specify.
<div class="syllable">value</div>
Is there a way to have the value inbetween the <div>'s get assigned to a string variable in python using selenium using XPath?
For example, the "value" in the element would be a string and it would print out:
value
I'm new to python and selenium so I can't figure it out.
To print out the text of the element.
elem=driver.find_element_by_class_name("syllable")
print(elem.text)
xpath:
elem=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='syllable']/text()")
print(elem)
it is called html innerText
you can retrieve this value using text in selenium , or get_attribute.
This returns the rendered text (means displayed text)
elem=driver.find_element_by_class_name("syllable")
print(elem.text)
This return the text with out checking the style attribute meaning returns value even if its not displayed in UI
elem=driver.find_element_by_class_name("syllable")
print(elem.get_attribute("textContent")
you can find elem using this text also:
// partial match
elem=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[contains(text(),'value')])
print(elem.text)
// exact match
elem=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[text()='value')])
print(elem.text)
// exact match of the elements text if there is any child element like span it won't return the element
elem=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[.='value')])
print(elem.text)
Also note:
Other things you could read about outerHTML , innerHTML
To print the text value you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:
Using class_name and get_attribute("textContent"):
print(driver.find_element_by_class_name("syllable").get_attribute("textContent"))
Using css_selector and get_attribute("innerHTML"):
print(driver.find_element_by_css_selector("div.syllable").get_attribute("innerHTML"))
Using xpath and text attribute:
print(driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='syllable']").text)
Ideally you need to induce WebDriverWait for the visibility_of_element_located() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:
Using CLASS_NAME and get_attribute("textContent"):
print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CLASS_NAME, "syllable"))).get_attribute("textContent"))
Using CSS_SELECTOR and text attribute:
print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "div.syllable"))).text)
Using XPATH and get_attribute():
print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//div[@class='syllable']"))).get_attribute("innerHTML"))
Console Output:
value
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
You can find a relevant discussion in How to retrieve the text of a WebElement using Selenium - Python
Link to useful documentation:
get_attribute() method Gets the given attribute or property of the element.text attribute returns The text of the element.