JAVA - How to use xpath in selenium

Question

i have this html code:

<select name="category" id="category">
    <option value="0">&laquo;Seleziona la categoria&raquo;</option>
    <option value='1' style='background-color:#ddd' disabled="disabled" id='cat1' >-- VEICOLI --</option>
    <option value='2'  id='cat2' >Auto</option>
</select>

and i have to select the WebElement identified by the tag option with text Auto. I try some solution like:

d.findElement(By.xpath("/select[@id=category]/option[@id=cat2]")).click();
d.findElement(By.xpath("/select[@id=category]/option[text()='Auto']")).click();
d.findElement(By.xpath("//select[@id=category]/option[Auto]")).click();

but everyone gives me:

Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException: Unable to locate element: {"method":"xpath","selector":"/select[@id=category]/option[@id=cat2]"} ( and other xpath i tried)
Command duration or timeout: 1.52 seconds
For documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/no_such_element.html

what is the right syntax? can someone help me?

I would suggest that if you know the ID of the option you just use d.findElement(By.id("cat2")); It's simple, will always work while that ID is there and requires no XPath knowledge. If you are searching for an element that has a known ID there is no need to invoke XPath. — Ardesco
– Ardesco, Commented May 14, 2012 at 15:30

Malcolm Smith · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-12 20:08:01Z

16

You don't have your XPath syntax right. You need quotes round the text attribute values you're matching against. Try:

d.findElement(By.xpath("//select[@id='category']/option[@id='cat2']")).click();

answered May 12, 2012 at 20:08

Malcolm Smith

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1 Comment

Ardesco Over a year ago

XPath is bang on, although you could shrink it even further by doing d.findElement(By.xpath("//option[@id='cat2']")).click();

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