selenium accessing text input element with changing ID using chrome webdriver

Question

I am having trouble accessing a input element from this specific webpage. http://prod.symx.com/MTECorp/config.asp?cmd=edit&CID=428D77C8A7ED4DA190E6170116F3A71B if the webpage has timed out just go ahead and click on this clink below https://www.mtecorp.com/click-find/ and click on the hyperlink "RL_reactors" to take you to the page. On this page, I am currently trying to access the search bar/ input element of the webpage to type in a part number that the company sells. This is for school projects and collecting data from different companies for pricing and etc. I am using pycharm(python) and selenium to write this script. Currently, this is the snippet of my code at the moment

# web scraping for MTE product cost list
# reading excel files on the drive
import time

from openpyxl import workbook, load_workbook
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.common.exceptions import TimeoutException
.........................
..more code
..........................
#part that is getting stuck on
if((selection >= 1) and (selection <= 7)):
    print("valid selection going to page...")
    if(selection == 1):
        target=driver.find_element(By.XPATH,"/html/body/main/article/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[1]/a")
        driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", target)
        element = WebDriverWait(driver,100).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR,".plxsty_pid"))).send_keys("test")
        print("passed clickabel element agruement\n")

currently, my code does go to the RL_reactors page as shown below but however when I'm using CSS selector by class name it doesn't recognize the class type I'm trying to get. Now of course many would say why not use XPath and etc. The reason I cant use XPath and etc is that the element id changes for every iteration of the script. So for example the 1st run of the program id name would be "hr8" when for the other script the program name could be "dsfsih". For my observation, the only part of the element that stays constant is the value and the class name. I have tried using XPath, id, ccselector, and such but to no result. Any suggestions thanks!

I don't get where you stuck. You open the page, enter "test" and you are trying to press the "validate" button? And your actual question is "how to press the validate button"? — Trapli
– Trapli, Commented Oct 26, 2021 at 21:54

Mitchell Olislagers · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-27 13:23:44Z

1

Because you are using javascript to click the link on your website, selenium doesn't change the tab (hence it cannot locate the class you are searching for). You can explicitly tell selenium to change the tab window.

url = "https://www.mtecorp.com/click-find/"
driver.get(url)

target=driver.find_element(By.XPATH,"/html/body/main/article/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[1]/a")
driver.execute_script("arguments[0].click();", target)
driver.switch_to.window(driver.window_handles[1])
element = WebDriverWait(driver,20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR,".plxsty_pid"))).clear()
element = WebDriverWait(driver,20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR,".plxsty_pid"))).send_keys('test')

Alternatively, instead of clicking the link, you can grab the href and open it in a new instance of selenium by calling driver.get() again.

url = "https://www.mtecorp.com/click-find/"
driver.get(url)
target_link=driver.find_element(By.XPATH,"/html/body/main/article/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[1]/td[1]/a").get_attribute('href')
driver.get(target_link)
element = WebDriverWait(driver,20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR,".plxsty_pid"))).clear()
element = WebDriverWait(driver,20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR,".plxsty_pid"))).send_keys("test")

edited Oct 27, 2021 at 13:23

answered Oct 26, 2021 at 22:54

Mitchell Olislagers

1,8271 gold badge6 silver badges11 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Jorge Jurado-Garcia Over a year ago

Thank you very much this solved my problem! I do have a general question tho. If want to open another page and look into its contents I'm assuming ill have to use the driver.window_handles[] would it just value an increased order like the second webpage open would-be driver.window_handles[2]? Thanks!

Mitchell Olislagers Over a year ago

It's generally best practice to use selenium's build-in function click() to open another page. Then it is not necessary to switch the tabs. If you were to open a link with javascript again, you will indeed need to switch the tabs again.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

selenium accessing text input element with changing ID using chrome webdriver

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related