Find Element and FindElements in Selenium WebDriver

Need for Find Element and FindElements command?

A user is required to interact with a web page to locate the web element. The command Find Element is used to uniquely locate a web element within the web page. Whereas, the command FindElements is used to locate the list of web elements within the web page uniquely. There are many ways to identify a web element within the web page like Name, ID, Link Text, Partial Link Text, ClassName, XPath,  and Tag Name.

Selenium FindElement Command:

FindElement command uses By object as a parameter and returns an object of type WebElement. By object can be used with different locator strategies like Name, ID, ClassName, XPath, LinkText, etc.

Syntax of FindElement Command

WebElement elementName = driver.findElement(By.LocatorStrategy(“LocatorValue”));

Following are the Locator Strategy values:

• Name
• ID
• Tag Name
• Class Name
• Link Text
• XPath
• Partial Link Text

Locator Value is the value through which a web element can be identified uniquely. It is the developer’s and tester’s job to make sure that web elements are identified uniquely with properties like Name or ID.

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Example:

WebElement login = driver.findElement(By.linkText(‘Login”)); [/box]

Selenium FindElements Command:

FindElements command uses By object as the parameter and returns a list of web elements. It returns an empty list if no elements are found when given locator strategy and locator value. 

 Syntax of FindElements Command

List<WebElement> elementName =     driver.findElements(By.LocatorStragety(“LocatorValue”));

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Example:

List<WebElement> Elementslist = driver.findElements(By.xpath(“//div”));

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Difference between findElement and find Elements Methods

How to use Selenium findElement Command

The below application is used for demo purpose:

https://www.facebook.com/ 

Scenario:

1. Open the https://www.facebook.com/ for AUT
2. Find and click the radio button

package  com.testing.selenium.findelement;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class FindElement {
public static void main(String[] args) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

driver.manage().window().maximize();

driver.get("https://www.facebook.com/");

//Find the radio button for Gender "Male" by using its ID and click on it

driver.findElement(By.id("u_0_7")).click();

       }

}

How to use Selenium find Elements Command

The below application is used for demo purpose:

https://www.facebook.com/ 

Scenario:

1. Open the https://www.facebook.com/ for AUT
2. Find the text of radio buttons and print on console

package com.testing.selenium.findelements;

import java.util.List;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class  FindElements {
public static  void main(String[] args) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");

WebDriver driver =  new ChromeDriver();

driver.manage().window().maximize();

driver.get("https://www.facebook.com/");

//Find the radio button for Gender "Male" by using its ID

List<WebElement> elements = driver.findElements(By.id("u_0_7"));

System.out.println("Number of elements:" +elements.size());

       for(int i=0;  i<elements.size();  i++){

       System.out.println("Radio button text:" + elements.get(i).getAttribute("value"));

       }

  }

}

Conclusion

• The Find Element command returns a single element that matches the first element within the web page.
• The Find Elements command returns a list of elements.
• The Find Element command throws NoSuchElementException if no matching element is found.
• The Find Elements command returns an empty list if no matching element is found, it will return an empty list.