Python Selenium Find Element by Name

Question

I am using Python / Selenium and am trying to select an input box that does not have an ID:

HTML

<div class="form-group">
    <input type="email"
           class="form-control"
           name="quantity"
           placeholder="Type a quantity">
</div>

Code

inputElement = driver.find_element_by_id("quantity")

What is the best way to select this element, by name?

Possibly for newer versions when using find_element_by_name (Pylint): "E1101: Instance of 'WebDriver' has no 'find_element_by_name' member (no-member)". For example, Selenium 4.12.0. — Peter Mortensen
– Peter Mortensen, Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 23:46
Related: Selenium - Python - AttributeError: 'WebDriver' object has no attribute 'find_element_by_name'. E.g., "Selenium just removed that method in version 4.3.0" — Peter Mortensen
– Peter Mortensen, Commented Sep 6, 2023 at 0:14

alecxe · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-25 16:24:42Z

15

find_element_by_name() method would fit here:

driver.find_element_by_name("quantity")

answered Feb 25, 2016 at 16:24

alecxe

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6 Comments

Padraic Cunningham Over a year ago

The answer is almost in the title ;)

Leonardo Scotti Over a year ago

now this is deprecated, use ind_element(by=By.NAME, value=name) instead

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

Typos are unhelpful. It is at least find_element(by=By.NAME, value=name)

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

Something like "from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By" is required for "By.NAME" to work.

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

A question about the import.

|

BobGratton · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-01 17:16:05Z

9

In September 2022 with Selenium 4.4.0 the correct answer would be:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
driver = webdriver.Firefox()
inputElement = driver.find_element(by=By.NAME, value='quantity')

answered Sep 1, 2022 at 17:16

BobGratton

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3 Comments

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

Yes, the "from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By" line is crucial. Otherwise the result may be (Pylint) "E0602: Undefined variable 'By' (undefined-variable)"

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

Though it does not work for a variable number of elements (dynamic content), say 0, 1, or 2: An exception is thrown, stopping the test run, if the element does not exist: "selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: Unable to locate element"

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

And it, presumably, only returns the first element if there is more than one.

RockinWatson · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-25 16:36:31Z

0

I have used this method to collect attributes from elements many times:

for i in browser.find_elements_by_class_name("form-control"):
    print i.get_attribute("name")

answered Feb 25, 2016 at 16:36

RockinWatson

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Comments

Oleksandr Makarenko · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-26 07:59:05Z

0

Preferable is to use explicit wait:

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


driver = webdriver.Chrome()
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 5)
input_element = wait.until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.NAME, 'quantity')))

More about waits here

answered Jul 26, 2018 at 7:59

Oleksandr Makarenko

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2 Comments

Peter Mortensen Over a year ago

Why is it preferable to use explicit wait?

Oleksandr Makarenko Over a year ago

Setting Explicit Wait is important in cases where there are certain elements that naturally take more time to load. If one sets an implicit wait command, then the browser will wait for the same time frame before loading every web element. This causes an unnecessary delay in executing the test script.

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