Regular expression to create xpath with Robot Framework

Question

I'm automating an application with the Robot Framework (Python 2.7). I use the xpath to locate the objects. I have seen that the xpath of the objects is different when I change the language application. For example:

ES

// * [@ id = "dnn_ctr489_ViewINT_Cupones_ibtnAdd"]

FR

// * [@ id = "dnn_ctr644_ViewINT_Cupones_ibtnAdd"]

EN

// * [@ id = "dnn_ctr583_ViewINT_Cupones_ibtnAdd"]

This forces me to redo the Test Case because the xpath is different.

Is it possible to use a regular expression to form the xpath? How can I avoid having to redo the test cases for each different language?

Thank you. Marta

Bryan Oakley · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-12 15:33:27Z

3

XPath 1

xpath 1.x doesn't support wildcards or regular expressions. However, xpath supports several string functions which can be combined to match what you want. For example, there's a starts-with function. There's no ends-with, but there is a contains, so you could use something like this:

//*[starts-with(@id, 'dnn_ctr') and contains(@id, 'ibtnAdd')]

Of course, that will match somethign like "dnn_ctr blah ibtnAdd blah". If you need precisely "starts with cnn_ctr" and "ends with ibtnAdd" you can do that with a little more work:

//*[starts-with(@id, 'dnn_ctr') and substring(@id, string-length(@id) - string-length('ibtnAdd') + 1) = 'ibtnAdd' ]

XPath 2

With xpath version 2 (which not all browsers support at the time I write this) you can use ends-with, making for a much more readable expression:

//*[starts-with(@id, 'dnn_ctr') and ends-with(@id, 'ibtnAdd')]

You can also match against a regular expression with matches:

//*[matches(@id, 'dnn_ctr.*ibtnAdd')]

edited Jan 12, 2018 at 15:33

answered Jan 12, 2018 at 15:26

Bryan Oakley

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1 Comment

Marta79 Over a year ago

Bryan Oakley, Thanks a lot. It has worked for me with the first option: "//*[starts-with(@id, 'dnn_ctr') and contains(@id, 'ibtnAdd')]"

renuka · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-12 10:02:16Z

0

You can use a variable file as input and put all your xpath values in it. I am using JSON in my example.Robot framework JSONlibrary can be used to parse JSON file (https://github.com/nottyo/robotframework-jsonlibrary)

input.json

{
    "Languages": {
         "ES": {
            "xpath1": "// * [@ id = "dnn_ctr489_ViewINT_Cupones_ibtnAdd"]",
             },
         "FR": {
            "xpath1": "// * [@ id = "dnn_ctr644_ViewINT_Cupones_ibtnAdd"]",
             },
         "EN": {
            "xpath1": "// * [@ id = "dnn_ctr583_ViewINT_Cupones_ibtnAdd"]",
             }

you can pass values to test cases based on your language selection in application by using a variable something like following

test.py

language_selected = 'EN'

answered Jan 12, 2018 at 10:02

renuka

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3 Comments

Marta79 Over a year ago

Thanks for your answer. I have installed the JSON library but I do not know how to put your example into practice. Can you help me? How do I use the .json file?

A. Kootstra Over a year ago

What would be the motivation to create an object store in JSON when Robot Framework natively supports variable files in Python or YAML format

renuka Over a year ago

@A.Kootstra That is a good point, It was just to show an example but Python dictionary can also be used instead of JSON format for input.

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