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I have been trying to automate some really boring stuff (because of how tedious I have been making mistakes and I want to reduce them as close as zero as I can), in essence I got assets that have to be entered into our system one by one through a horrible process. This is my problem right now:

My objective is to select the option 'CELL PHONES' on the drop down list (ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown). Also for security reasons and the fact that it is a protected Corporate Page (I already handled login and navigation till this point) I can only show snippets of the code as to not compromise it.

EDIT 1 (Modified this to add more of the HTML code)

<td class="rcbInputCell rcbInputCellLeft" style="width:100%;"><input name="ctl00$CPH1$cmbClasses" type="text" class="rcbInput radPreventDecorate" id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_Input" value="" /></td><td class="rcbArrowCell rcbArrowCellRight"><a id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_Arrow" style="overflow: hidden;display: block;position: relative;outline: none;">select</a></td>
                </tr>
            </table><div class="rcbSlide" style="z-index:6000;"><div id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown" class="RadComboBoxDropDown RadComboBoxDropDown_WebBlue " style="display:none;width:140px;"><div class="rcbScroll rcbWidth" style="width:100%;"><ul class="rcbList" style="list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0;zoom:1;"><li class="rcbItem"></li><li class="rcbItem">CELL PHONES</li><li class="rcbItem">CELLULAR PHONE SCRAP (WITHOUT BATTERIES)</li><li class="rcbItem">COMPUTER - DESKTOP</li><li class="rcbItem">COMPUTER -TOWER</li><li class="rcbItem">COMPUTERS</li><li class="rcbItem">COMPUTERS - SFF</li><li class="rcbItem">COPPER BEARING - LOW GRADE</li><li class="rcbItem">Desktop</li><li class="rcbItem">FLOPPY DISK DRIVES</li><li class="rcbItem">GARBAGE - NON HAZARDOUS</li><li class="rcbItem">LAPTOPS</li><li class="rcbItem">LCD Monitor</li><li class="rcbItem">MISC. ELECTRONICS</li><li class="rcbItem">MISCELLANEOUS</li><li class="rcbItem">MODEMS</li><li class="rcbItem">NETWORK EQUIPMENT</li><li class="rcbItem">OCC</li><li class="rcbItem">PHONES - DIGITAL</li><li class="rcbItem">PRINTERS</li><li class="rcbItem">SERVERS</li><li class="rcbItem">SERVERS - TOWER</li><li class="rcbItem">Telecom Equipment</li><li class="rcbItem">Telephone</li><li class="rcbItem">Telephone Accessory</li><li class="rcbItem">TEST EQUIPMENT</li><li class="rcbItem">WIRE &amp; CABLE - MISC. </li></ul></div></div></div><input id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_ClientState" name="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_ClientState" type="hidden" />
        </div>

This is the combobox code from the page (corporate web form), I am trying to select it but my current codes and attempts (some from other post here in Stack Overflow) have failed so far, this is what I have attempted so far:

def fast_multiselect(driver, element_id, labels):
select = browser.find_element_by_id('ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown')
for option in select.find_element_by_name('CELL PHONE'):
    if option.text in labels:
        option.click()

This was my first attempt (several iterations of the same code) and the result was Python not listing any errors but not selecting the option I wanted so following advice from here I went for this:

selectDropDownList = browser.find_element_by_id("ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown > option[value='CELL PHONE']").click()

And this was the result:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\Scripts\Add Asset.py", line 77, in selectDropDownList = browser.find_element_by_id("ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown > option[value='CELL PHONE']").click() File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 269, in find_element_by_id return self.find_element(by=By.ID, value=id_) File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 752, in find_element 'value': value})['value'] File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 236, in execute self.error_handler.check_response(response) File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\errorhandler.py", line 192, in check_response raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace) selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"id","selector":"ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown > option[value='CELL PHONE']"} (Session info: chrome=52.0.2743.116) (Driver info: chromedriver=2.23.409699 (49b0fa931cda1caad0ae15b7d1b68004acd05129),platform=Windows NT 10.0.10586 x86_64)

I continued marching forward and this was my last attempt:

Select(browser.find_element_by_id('ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown')).select_by_value('CELL PHONES')

And the result is:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\Scripts\Add Asset.py", line 78, in Select(browser.find_element_by_id('ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown')).select_by_value('CELL PHONES') File "C:\Users\AMSUser\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\lib\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\support\select.py", line 39, in init webelement.tag_name) selenium.common.exceptions.UnexpectedTagNameException: Message: Select only works on elements, not on

halfer
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Jean Paul Schutte
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  • Could you tell me when this dorpdown getting visible?? – Saurabh Gaur Sep 13 '16 at 13:36
  • By visible i think yo mean: When the options shown graphically on the screen. If so i have to click a drop down button (a small arrow on the drop down) so the options become visible. If that's not it please can you elaborate for someone with little knowledge? Thanks for the patience. – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 14:04
  • Ok then share that arrow button as well, you need to first click on this arrow button then wait for dropdown options getting visible then find and click. If you want exact solution need to share that arrow button HTML as well.. – Saurabh Gaur Sep 13 '16 at 14:27
  • `select` This is the code i just used and it failed to do anything not even an error message: `firstDropdown = browser.find_element_by_id('ct100_CPH1_cmbClasses_Arrow') firstDropdown.click()` – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 14:52
  • Ok so here `a` element is clickable and open options or other?? Let me know – Saurabh Gaur Sep 13 '16 at 14:54
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    Changed my code to this: `dropArrow = browser.find_element_by_id('ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_Arrow') dropArrow.click()` and now works, now i am in the part of selecting the 'CELL PHONES' from the drop down list, i am trying to go by text instead of XPath because im not that knowledgeable in Xpath. – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 15:05
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    Thanks its solved now! – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 16:36

4 Answers4

4

After some tinkering and great advice from everyone that posted here, this is the solution that worked for me:

dropArrow = browser.find_element_by_id('ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_Arrow') 
dropArrow.click() 
time.sleep(1) 
dropdown1 = browser.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[.="CELL PHONES"]') 
dropdown1.click()

So brief explanation on what was happening, my first problem was that the list wasn't visible, that was solved by clicking on the drop down with:

dropArrow = browser.find_element_by_id('ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_Arrow') 
dropArrow.click()

After that, I had the problem that even though I had the drop down list down it still said it was not visible; this I solved by making the script wait a second so he could register the options with:

time.sleep(1)

And lastly I selected the item with:

dropdown1 = browser.find_element_by_xpath('//*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[.="CELL PHONES"]') 
dropdown1.click()
Abbas
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Jean Paul Schutte
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1

Your problem is that this element is not Select but <div>, so you cannot use Selenium's Select class.

I don't see page which you are working at, but i suppose that <div> with id = ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown is element which you have to click on to show dropdown list?

If it is, then you have to find that element by id, click on it, then find another element <li> that contains text 'CELL PHONE' or whatever you want - for example using xpath.

this WebDriver docs page will help you

Łukasz Piaszczyk
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  • Thanks i am trying to find how to work it, although xpaths are actually hard for me to work with. The resource will help, when i find a solution i will post it. – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 14:14
  • Sure, let us know if you will stuck :) if not xpath, you can get element by link text - in that case it should find it by visible text, it is 'CELL PHONE'. I don't remember how this method is called in selenium for python, but linked doc will help. – Łukasz Piaszczyk Sep 13 '16 at 14:31
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Before this make sure your drop-down is visible because there is a div with display:none., the second div.

Assuming dropdown is visible, use the following xpath to match 'CELL PHONES'

browser.find_element_by_xpath('//div/ul[@class='rcbList']/li[@class='rcbItem'][.='CELL PHONES']')
Grasshopper
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  • It did nothing, but i think i am missing something big because everyone keeps mentioning about Visibility and i have no clue about what is that. Ill research some more on be back to you! – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 14:16
  • Ok so in theory i solved the visibility problem by clicking on the arrow but using your code still gives me the error about the element not being visible. – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 15:21
  • If you are on Chrome can you open up developer console by hitting F12. In the console type in $x("//div/ul[@class='rcbList']/li[@class='rcbItem'][.='CELL PHONES']") check if anything comes up. I tried with your original html and it worked. – Grasshopper Sep 13 '16 at 15:24
  • Yeah i am actually copying the Xpath from the developer tools (just learned that you can copy that, its awesome!) this is the path that it gives me `//*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[2]/text()` however Python always returns: ` Message: invalid selector: The result of the xpath expression "//*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[2]/text()" is: [object Text]. It should be an element. )` which i assume means that i am doing something wrong – Jean Paul Schutte Sep 13 '16 at 15:41
  • //*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[.='CELL PHONES'] or //*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[text()='CELL PHONES'] or //*[@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[contains(text(),'CELL PHONES')] or [@id="ctl00_CPH1_cmbClasses_DropDown"]/div/ul/li[contains(.,'CELL PHONES')]... One of these four should give you the 'CELL PHONES' options. Make sure the CELL PHONES case is upper in the html as well – Grasshopper Sep 13 '16 at 15:46
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This is what I use when Select cannot work.

dd_arrow = WebDriverWait(browser, delay).until(
    EC.presence_of_element_located((By.ID, '#DD arrow element ID')))
dd_arrow.click()

available_options = browser.find_element_by_id(
    '#Id of actual DD list').find_element_by_css_selector('ul')

for opts in available_options.find_elements_by_css_selector('li'):

    if opts.get_attribute('textContent') == #Required item:
        opts.click()
        break

or

 if #Required_item in opts.get_attribute('textContent'):
        opts.click()
        break
Momin Ejaz
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