Identifying Elements Using Python Selenium

Question

I'm struggling to click this html element/locate it using selenium in python on this website:

https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/exams/past-papers.html?Qualification-Family=International-Advanced-Level

After you scroll down press B and then Biology the pop up menu shown in the attached screenshot with "Biology (2018)" and "Biology" buttons are the desired elements and here is the html code for the "Biology (2018)" button:

<li data-ng-repeat="modalSubject in subject.subjectsList | orderBy:'-title'" class="ng-scope">
  <a tabindex="0" data-ng-keypress="handleKeyPress($event)" data-ng-click="setExamSeriesUrl(modalSubject);">
    <h3 class="ng-binding">Biology (2018)</h3>
    <div class="description ng-binding"></div>
  </a>
</li>

How do I locate this element and click it?

I tried this to locate and click the element but to no avail with a timeout error(despite me using time.sleep() to give it a long enough lag for the element to appear/show up):

xpath = '//li[contains(.//h3, "{}")]'
formatted_xpath = xpath.format(Subject+" (2018)")
element = wait.until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, formatted_xpath)))
element.click()

For xpaths i recommend this guide. It has a understandable step by step approach with 6 sections. https://www.w3schools.com/xml/xpath_intro.asp — Knight, Jun 19 '23 at 10:03

Shawn · Answer 1 · 2023-06-19T10:19:41.153

Try the below XPath expression to locate "Biology (2018)":

xpath = //div[@class='modal-cover']//h3[text()='Biology (2018)']

And this one for "Biology":

xpath = //div[@class='modal-cover']//h3[text()='Biology']

Full working code for your reference:

import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.wait import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.maximize_window()
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 30)
driver.get("https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/exams/past-papers.html?Qualification-Family=International-Advanced-Level")
# Accept Cookies
wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.ID, "onetrust-accept-btn-handler"))).click()
# Click on element B
wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//a[text()='B']"))).click()
# Click on element Biology
wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//a[text()='Biology']"))).click()
# Click on element Biology (2018) in the pop-up
wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//div[@class='modal-cover']//h3[text()='Biology (2018)']"))).click()
time.sleep(20)

Result:

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 19 '23 at 11:06

Given the HTML:

<li data-ng-repeat="modalSubject in subject.subjectsList | orderBy:'-title'" class="ng-scope">
    <a tabindex="0" data-ng-keypress="handleKeyPress($event)" data-ng-click="setExamSeriesUrl(modalSubject);">
       <h3 class="ng-binding">Biology (2018)</h3>
       <div class="description ng-binding"></div>
    </a>
</li>

The element with text Biology (2018) is an Angular element, so to click on the clickable element you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use the following locator strategy:

Using XPATH:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//div[@class='modal-cover']//h3[@class='ng-binding' and text()='Biology (2018)']"))).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

Identifying Elements Using Python Selenium

2 Answers2