Automate clicking on JavaScript link with Selenium

Question

I am trying to automate a click to page 2 of a database that runs asynchronously on a webpage. When using the Xpath:

//id('standardView')/x:div[3]/x:div[3]/x:a[1]

I get the following error:

[error] Invalid xpath [2]: //id('rightMenu')/x:div[3]/x:div[3]/x:a[1]

So I tried using DOM to find its path, and the below code brings up the actual link being pushed when run with Firebug...

   main = document.getElementById("rightMenu"); mainCont = main.contentDocument;
   paging = mainCont.getElementsByTagName("a"); pageTwo = paging[0];

Firebug will show:

<a href="javascript:chgPage(2);">

but Selenium is throwing this error:

[error] Unexpected Exception: fileName -> chrome://selenium-ide/content/selenium-
core/scripts/selenium-api.js, lineNumber -> 2535, columnNumber -> 45

And just plain 'ol recording the action isn't picking up that the button is being pressed. I can't seem to find a workaround solution. Any insight, my friends?

Can you post a snippet of the html?

so cal cheesehead
– so cal cheesehead

2013-03-22 14:45:01 +00:00
Commented Mar 22, 2013 at 14:45 — so cal cheesehead
– so cal cheesehead, Commented Mar 22, 2013 at 14:45

Furious Duck · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-23 01:42:00Z

2

Kinda strange xpath. Try to use //*[@id='standardView']/div[3]/div[3]/a[1]

But try to use selectors without indexes and as short as possible

//a[@href='javascript:chgPage(2);']

or

//*[@id='standardView']//a[@href='javascript:chgPage(2);']

These ones can work as well (if they're unique, check this with firepath plugin for firebug)

answered Mar 23, 2013 at 1:42

Furious Duck

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1 Comment

KPM Over a year ago

Thanks, Alexander! I used //a[@href='javascript:chgPage(2);'] and it worked perfectly.

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