Iteratively reading a specific element from a <table> with Selenium for Python

Question

I am trying to read in information from this table that changes periodically. The HTML looks like this:

<table class="the_table_im_reading">
  <thead>...</thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr id="uc_6042339">
      <td class="expansion">...</td>
      <td>
        <div id="card_6042339_68587" class="cb">
          <a href="/uniquelink" class="cl" onmouseover="cardHover('somecard');" onmouseout="cardOut()">TEXT I NEED TO READ</a>
      </td>
      <td>...</td>
      more td's
    </tr>
    <tr id="uc_6194934">...</tr>
      <td class="expansion">...</td>
      similar as the first <tr id="uc...">

I was able to get to the table using:

table_xpath = "//*[@id="content-wrapper"]/div[5]/table"
table_element = driver.find_element_by_xpath(table_xpath)

And I am trying to read the TEXT I NEED TO READ part for each unique <tr id="uc_unique number">. The id=uc_unique number changes periodically, so I cannot use find element by id.

Is there a way reach that element and read that specific text?

drkthng · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-13 07:59:30Z

4

Looks like you can search via the anchor-element link (href-attribute), since I guess this will not change.

via xpath:

yourText = table_element.find_element_by_xpath(.//a[@href='/blahsomelink']).text

UPDATE

OP mentioned that his link is also changing (with each call?), which means that the first approach is not for him.

if you want the text of the first row-element you can try this:

yourText = table_element.find_element_by_xpath(.//tr[1]//a[@class='cl']).text

if you know for example that the link element is always in the second data-element of the first row and there is only one link-element, then you can do this:

yourText = table_element.find_element_by_xpath(.//tr[1]/td[2]//a).text

Unless you provide more detailed requirements as to what you are really searching for, this will have to suffice so far...

Another UPDATE

OP gave more info regarding his requirement:

I am trying to get the text in each row.

Given there is only one anchor-element with class cl in each tr element you can do the following:

elements = table_element.find_elements_by_xpath(.//tr//a[@class='cl'])
for element in elements:
    row_text = element.text

Now you can do whatever you need with all these texts...

edited Oct 13, 2015 at 7:59

answered Oct 12, 2015 at 7:49

drkthng

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3 Comments

Jason Woo Over a year ago

Sorry, I should've also specified that that link is unique to the tr. Edited.

drkthng Over a year ago

so are you always searching for the text in the first row? Or do you want the texts of ALL rows with unique ids? Are there rows that do not have these ids?

Jason Woo Over a year ago

All rows with unique ids. All rows have the ids and the identical structure as the first one in my question. I am trying to get the text in each row.

JeffC · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-13 02:01:46Z

1

It looks like you have a few options.

If all you want is the first A, it might be as simple as

table_element.find_element_by_css_selector("a.cl")).text

or the little more specific

table_element.find_element_by_css_selector("div.cb > a.cl")).text

If you want all the As, try the find_elements_* versions of the above.

answered Oct 13, 2015 at 2:01

JeffC

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Comments

Al Martins · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-31 17:42:28Z

0

I managed to find the elements I needed using .get_attribute("textContent") instead of .text , a tip from Get Text from Span returns empty string

answered Jan 31, 2022 at 17:42

Al Martins

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1 Comment

Luca Kiebel Over a year ago

Al Martins, instead of posting an answer which merely links to another answer, please instead flag the question as a duplicate.

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