How to use unicode inside an xpath string? (UnicodeEncodeError)

Question

I'm using xpath in Selenium RC via the Python api.

I need to click an a element who's text is "Submit »"

Here's the error that I'm getting:

In [18]: sel.click(u"xpath=//a[text()='Submit \xbb')]")
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
UnicodeDecodeError                        Traceback (most recent call last)

/Users/me/<ipython console> in <module>()

/Users/me/selenium.py in click(self, locator)
    282         'locator' is an element locator
    283         """
--> 284         self.do_command("click", [locator,])
    285 
    286 

/Users/me/selenium.py in do_command(self, verb, args)
    201         body = u'cmd=' + urllib.quote_plus(unicode(verb).encode('utf-8'))
    202         for i in range(len(args)):
--> 203             body += '&' + unicode(i+1) + '=' + urllib.quote_plus(unicode(args[i]).encode('utf-8'))
    204         if (None != self.sessionId):
    205             body += "&sessionId=" + unicode(self.sessionId)

UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc2 in position 28: ordinal not in range(128)

Dimitre Novatchev · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-13 14:36:41Z

3

sel.click(u"xpath=//a[text()='Submit \xbb')]")

It is possible to write XPath expressions that contain any Unicode characters.

For example:

//a[text()='Submit »')]

answered Jun 13, 2010 at 14:36

Dimitre Novatchev

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5 Comments

ivan_pozdeev Over a year ago

Does Python provide a facility to encode Unicode like this? I don't see anything relevant in docs.python.org/3/library/codecs.html

Dimitre Novatchev Over a year ago

@ivan_pozdeev, The right operand of the = comparison in the XPath expression is a string that anyone can specify in Python. Even if Python cannot work with Unicode, which I doubt, one can specify the string in the XPath expression and it is XPath that deals with the Unicode conversion

ivan_pozdeev Over a year ago

Of course, I can write these symbols myself, but that's inconvenient, I'd rather write the characters normally and pass them to a conversion function. I'm asking if Python provides some stock function that would convert u"»" into "»".

Dimitre Novatchev Over a year ago

@ivan_pozdeev: Ask a regular question (not a comment) in the python tag

Sohan Das Over a year ago

u at the beginning of the xpath solved my problem, thanks!

Alex Martelli · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-12 19:51:07Z

1

I think you just need to change

sel.click(u"xpath=//a[text()='Submit \xbb')]")

to

sel.click(u"xpath=//a[text()='Submit \xbb')]".encode('utf8'))

That's because the error indicates Selenium is trying to encode the Unicode object into a byte string (using the default codec for Python, that is, 'ascii') and that's what is failing; by explicitly encoding it yourself first, with what's presumably the right codec ('utf8', the default encoding in XML), you should therefore avoid this problem.

answered Jun 12, 2010 at 19:51

Alex Martelli

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1 Comment

GJ. Over a year ago

I tried adding that - it still throws a UnicodeDecodeError. Any other ideas?

chryss · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-12 19:59:01Z

0

Does sel_click() expect unicode strings or utf-8 (byte) strings? The dreaded UnicodeEncodeError usually happens when you try to pass in the first when the latter (or some other encoding) is expected.

I can't try it right now, but you could try

"xpath=//a[text()='Submit \xc2\xbb')]"

instead of your argument (which you get by using .encode('utf-8')) on it.

answered Jun 12, 2010 at 19:59

chryss

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1 Comment

chryss Over a year ago

(Hm, nevermind. I seem to have been typing this while Alex Martelli had posted an answer already...)

asha cr · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-20 05:04:06Z

0

Im using selenium and roboframework I had this similar issue. I had an Xpath with a special charecter as below:

    xpath=(//a[contains(@href,'Ontkoppel cliënt')])[1]

and i had to replace with the ascii code and it worked fine.

    xpath=(//a[contains(@href,'Ontkoppel cli\u00EBnt')])[1]

Hope the example helps a little...

answered Apr 20, 2018 at 5:04

asha cr

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2 Comments

ivan_pozdeev Over a year ago

I don't know what language this is, but it's not Python. The problem asked is Python-specific.

asha cr Over a year ago

Hi Ivan, This question was with respect to using xpath in Selenium RC via the Python api so here in the above example i have stated the usage of unicode or special char inside the xpath so that to use them in Selenium RC via Python. :)

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