Using Selenium WebDriver to retrieve the value of an HTML input

Try element.getAttribute("value")

The text property is for text within the tags of an element. For input elements, the displayed text is not wrapped by the <input> tag, instead it's inside the value attribute.

Note: Case matters. If you specify "Value", you'll get a 'null' value back. This is true for C# at least.

You can do it like this:

webelement time = driver.findElement(By.id("input_name")).getAttribute("value");

This will give you the time displaying on the webpage.

For Python bindings it will be:

element.get_attribute('value')

With Selenium 2, I usually write it like this:

WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.id("input_name"));
String elementval = element.getAttribute("value");

Or

String elementval = driver.findElement(By.id("input_name")).getAttribute("value");

As was mentioned before, you could do something like this:

public String getVal(WebElement webElement) {
    JavascriptExecutor e = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
    return (String) e.executeScript(String.format("return $('#%s').val();", webElement.getAttribute("id")));
}

But as you can see, your element must have an id attribute, and also, jQuery on your page.

Following ragzzy's answer, I use

public static string Value(this IWebElement element,
                           IJavaScriptExecutor javaScriptExecutor)
{
    try
    {
        string value = javaScriptExecutor.ExecuteScript("return arguments[0].value", element) as string;
        return value;
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        return null;
    }
}

It works quite well and does not alter the DOM.

Use

element.GetAttribute("value");

Even though if you don't see the "value" attribute in the HTML DOM, you will get the field value displayed in the GUI.

If the input value gets populated by a script that has some latency involved (e.g. AJAX call) then you need to wait until the input has been populated. E.g.

var w = new WebDriverWait(WebBrowser, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
            w.Until((d) => {
                // Wait until the input has a value...

                var elements = d.FindElements(By.Name(name));

                var ele = elements.SingleOrDefault();

                if (ele != null)
                {
                    // Found a single element

                    if (ele.GetAttribute("value") != "")
                    {
                        // We have a value now
                        return true;
                    }
                }

                return false;
                });

        var e = WebBrowser.Current.FindElement(By.Name(name));

        if (e.GetAttribute("value") != value)
        {
            Assert.Fail("Result contains a field named '{0}', but its value is '{1}', not '{2}' as expected", name, e.GetAttribute("value"), value);
        }

Nowadays, use element.getDomProperty("value"). It is only about getting the property, and so, this is a closer match for the need than getAttribute. When asking for retrieving an input value, usually the developer wants the current value of the value property, which represents the current value of the input. While the DOM attribute value value will only be the initial value of the input element.

getAttribute is a mixed bag with a misleading name: it first attempts to retrieve a property current value if it exists, otherwise fallback on looking for a matching attribute. So, it works for the need of getting an input current value, but that is misleading, one may always ask whether that is truly correct or not.

If actually willing to get the value attribute value, not the property value, use getDomAttribute("value").

As said by others, getText is something else entirely. It is meant to retrieve the text content of an HTML tag. So, it applies only to tags which are not self-closing and can hold some text content, like <p>Some text content</p>. The value of an input is not text content.

Java users:

To get what is printed on the page, we need to use the getText() method.

getText() method

The getText() method returns the visible inner text of a web element.

getAttribute() method

On the other hand, the getAttribute() method fetches the value of the attribute we wish to retrieve.

Example:

<input name="Title" type="text" value="LambdaTest" /> Welcome to LambdaTest </input>

getText()

driver.findElement(By.name("Title")).getText();

Output of above code => Welcome to LambdaTest

getAttribute():

1. driver.findElement(By.name("Title")).getAttribute("value");

   Output of above code => LambdaTest

2. driver.findElement(By.name("Title")).getAttribute("type");

   Output of above code => text

Source: Difference between getText() And getAttribute() in Selenium WebDriver

It works for me in java code:

@FindBy(how = How.XPATH, using = "//input[@formcontrolname='name']")
private WebElement name;

try {
      JavascriptExecutor jse;
      String value = (String)jse.executeScript("return arguments[0].value", name);
      return value;
    } catch(Exception ex) {
      return "";
    }