How to click on a specific onclick valueusing Selenium and Python

Question

What can I do to replace find_element_css_selector in Selenium Python to click on a specific onclick value

(javascript:unitsSelectUnit(1))

The browser is google chrome

browser.get("http://eatsmart.housing.illinois.edu/NetNutrition/46#")
browser.find_element_css_selector("a[onclick*=javascript:unitsSelectUnit(1);]").click()
html = browser.page_source
time.sleep(2)
print(html)

# close web browser
browser.close()

undetected Selenium · Answer 1 · 2021-12-10T22:05:05.327

2

To click on the element with text as Ikenberry Dining Center (IKE) you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using LINK_TEXT:

driver.get("http://eatsmart.housing.illinois.edu/NetNutrition/46#")
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.LINK_TEXT, "New"))).click()

Using CSS_SELECTOR:

driver.get("http://eatsmart.housing.illinois.edu/NetNutrition/46#")
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "a[onclick*='unitsSelectUnit(1)']"))).click()

Using XPATH:

driver.get("http://eatsmart.housing.illinois.edu/NetNutrition/46#")
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//a[contains(@onclick, 'unitsSelectUnit(1)')]"))).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

Browser Snapshot:

edited Dec 10 '21 at 22:05

answered Dec 10 '21 at 21:55

undetected Selenium

183,867
41
278
352

1

It keeps opening and closing within 1 second, do I change the 20 or the sleep time to help keep the browser open for a while. – aryan Dec 10 '21 at 23:24
_`20`_ in `WebDriverWait(driver, 20)` is more then enough. Do you have the latest Chrome/ChromeDriver? – undetected Selenium Dec 11 '21 at 12:43
I mean what if I want to keep it permanently open – aryan Dec 11 '21 at 16:51
Also thank you for the help, the code worked out and I used that method for the rest of the scraper. – aryan Dec 11 '21 at 16:52

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '21 at 06:49

This CSS_SELECTOR

a[onclick*=javascript:unitsSelectUnit(1);]

that you are using in your code is wrong. Basically, you are missing ''

CSS_SELECTOR follow the below syntax:

node_name[attribute_name = 'attribute_value']

You can cross verify as well by following the below steps:

Steps to check:

Press F12 in Chrome -> go to element section -> do a CTRL + F -> then paste the css selector and see, if your desired element is getting highlighted with 1/1 matching node.

This a[onclick*=javascript:unitsSelectUnit(1);] won't match anything, where as a[onclick*='javascript:unitsSelectUnit(1);'] will match Ikenberry Dining Center (IKE) node.

Now If you want to click on it, please use the below code:

Code:

browser.maximize_window()
wait = WebDriverWait(browser, 30)
browser.get("http://eatsmart.housing.illinois.edu/NetNutrition/46#")


try:
    btn = wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "a[onclick*='javascript:unitsSelectUnit(1);']")))
    btn.click()
except:
    print("Could not click on button")
    pass

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 on a specific onclick valueusing Selenium and Python

2 Answers2