Is using the Select element instead of physically doing 'element.click()' bad practice in Test Automation?

Question

Is using the Select element instead of physically doing 'element.click()' bad practice in Test Automation?

I am concerned if we should even be using <select> elements since we are essentially bypassing the UI? Struggling to find discussions relating to this.

Answer 1

html-select nodes must be always handled through Select(webelement) class inducing WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable(). As an example:

• Using Java, cssSelector and selectByVisibleText():

  new Select(new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.cssSelector("selectElementCss")))).selectByVisibleText("visibleText");
  

• Using Python, xpath and select_by_value():

  Select(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "select_element_xpath")))).select_by_value("option_value")
  

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References

You can find a couple of detailed discussions in:

• How to open the option items of a select tag (dropdown) in different tabs/windows?
• How to select an option from a dropdown through Selenium WebDriver
• How to select a drop-down menu value with Selenium using Python?
• Message: Element could not be scrolled into view while trying to click on an option within a dropdown menu through Selenium