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POClicking on a hypertext link using XPath
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  1. POClicking on a hypertext link using XPath
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    copied!<p>Apologies if this is a dumb question - I'm new to Selenium.</p> <p>I have a web page I'm testing that has a few hypertext links in a table. The HTML looks like this:</p> <pre><code>&lt;table&gt; &lt;thead&gt; &lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;b&gt;History&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;b&gt;Attributes&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;b&gt;Xml&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/thead&gt; &lt;tbody&gt; &lt;tr&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=link here&gt;Show&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=link here&gt;Show&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=link here&gt;Show&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt; &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/tbody&gt; &lt;/table&gt; </code></pre> <p>I want to test a click on each of the 'Show' links. They all have the same text, so I can't reference them by linktext. I've been referencing them by XPath, so that:</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='content']/div/form/div/table[2]/thead/tr/td[1]").getText() </code></pre> <p>correctly returns 'History' and</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='content']/div/form/div/table[2]/tbody/tr/td[1]").getText() </code></pre> <p>correct returns 'Show'.</p> <p>So I would think that:</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='content']/div/form/div/table[2]/tbody/tr/td[1]")).click() </code></pre> <p>would click on the 'Show' link in the first column. But it doesn't - nothing happens.</p> <p>If I do:</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.linkText("Show")).click() </code></pre> <p>it clicks on the first 'Show' link, which is what I expect.</p> <p>I can also do:</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='content']/div/form/div/table[2].1.0")).click() </code></pre> <p>and that works, as does</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.xpath("(//a[contains(text(),'Show')])[2]")).click() </code></pre> <p>So, to sum, all of these work:</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.linkText("Show")).click() driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='content']/div/form/div/table[2].1.0")).click() driver.findElement(By.xpath("(//a[contains(text(),'Show')])[1]")).click() </code></pre> <p>but this doesn't:</p> <pre><code>driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='content']/div/form/div/table[2]/tbody/tr/td[1]")).click() </code></pre> <p>Why?</p>
 

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