Finding element by custom button attribute using Selenium

Question

On a webpage, I have a button element with various attributes.

<button class="alert-area rj-button--plain ng-binding" ng-click="forceStructSync()" bs-tooltip="" data-original-title="This runs a structure sync, and makes sure our warehouse is aware of any new tables you've added to your database recently." data-placement="right" button-text="Check for new tables and columns"> <span class="rj-icon--refresh"></span> Check for new tables and columns </button>

I have tried with selenium with different forms of syntax to select and click the element using its button-text attribute, but am unsure where the error is coming from. It is definitely not a timing issue, in other words, the page is loaded when the find command is executed.

from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
import time


driver.get ('https://mywebsite.com')
#time.sleep(10)
driver.find_element_by_css_selector(".button[button-text='Check for new tables and columns']").click()

I have also tried the camel case buttonText and button_text in place button-text, but this throws the same error.

selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to lo
cate element: {"method":"css selector","selector":".button[button-text='Check for new tabl
es and columns']"}

Any suggestions on what might be the correct syntax here?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 16 '21 at 03:13

0

Actually the answer was not to include the period before button so this worked:

driver.find_element_by_css_selector("button[button-text='Check for new tables and columns']").click()

answered Feb 16 '21 at 03:13

iskandarblue

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1

The `.` indicates a class. In this case, BUTTON is a tag and not a class. That's why removing the `.` fixed this locator. – JeffC Feb 16 '21 at 04:17

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 16 '21 at 10:11

To click on the element you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using css_selector:

driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "button.alert-area.rj-button--plain.ng-binding[ng-click^='forceStructSync'][data-original-title^='This runs a structure sync']").click()

Using xpath:

driver.find_element(By.XPATH, "//button[@class='alert-area rj-button--plain ng-binding' and starts-with(@ng-click, 'forceStructSync')][contains(., 'Check for new tables and columns')]").click()

The desired element is a dynamic element, so 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, "button.alert-area.rj-button--plain.ng-binding[ng-click^='forceStructSync'][data-original-title^='This runs a structure sync']"))).click()

Using XPATH:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//button[@class='alert-area rj-button--plain ng-binding' and starts-with(@ng-click, 'forceStructSync')][contains(., 'Check for new tables and columns')]"))).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

Finding element by custom button attribute using Selenium

2 Answers2