Clear text from textarea with selenium

Question

I've got some tests where I'm checking that the proper error message appears when text in certain fields are invalid. One check for validity is that a certain textarea element is not empty.

If this textarea already has text in it, how can I tell selenium to clear the field?

something like:

driver.get_element_by_id('foo').clear_field()

Keystone

I found it driver.get_element_by_id('foo').clear() – Keystone

9 years later, and it's still surprisingly common to use the obvious thing input_field.clear and have it... not clear the input_field. For no good reason. St Isidore help us. – Fiftieth

Answer 1

driver.find_element_by_id('foo').clear()

Keystone

This does not work for me in the most recent Selenium version. – Flanagan

youp chromedriver also breaks on this one. Fenix answer works everywhere – Frye

It may be an issue with conflicting selenium and chromedriver versions. It seems unlikely that the devs would remove this functionality from chromedriver deliberatly. – Keystone

At the moment this answer does not work correctly in React apps as clear will not cause the React onChange function to fire. Thus your input will be cleared and tests will move on and the state of your component will remain as it was before. react issue, selenium issue – Tacnode

@Tacnode 3 years later it looks like this still does not work – Bendicta

Works with Selenium Java 0:) – Marmion

Still does not work with python + chrome + selenium combinition. – Oneal

This won't work with React or any other input with sophisticated event handlers – Kendy

Answer 2

Option a)

If you want to ensure keyboard events are fired, consider using sendKeys(CharSequence).

Example 1:

 from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
 # ...
 webElement.sendKeys(Keys.CONTROL + "a")
 webElement.sendKeys(Keys.DELETE)

Example 2:

 from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
 # ...
 webElement.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE)  //do repeatedly, e.g. in while loop

WebElement

There are many ways to get the required WebElement, e.g.:

• driver.find_element_by_id
• driver.find_element_by_xpath
• driver.find_element

Option b)

 webElement.clear()

If this element is a text entry element, this will clear the value.

Note that the events fired by this event may not be as you'd expect. In particular, we don't fire any keyboard or mouse events.

Prowl

When using CTRL+'a' consider situation when test will be running on MacOS (other keyboard shortcuts). Btw -good suggestion, solved my issue. – Ravish

My problem solved by the "Keys.BACK_SPACE". I just capture the search test field, run .click() then inside a for loop run the code. it removes all the charterers the search field previously had. then send new value to the search field. Just .clear() function was not working for me. – Loving

Helped only webElement.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE); //do repeatedly, e.g. in while loop in my strange case – Attainment

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys just to make things easier for newcomers. – Nascent

Sending Keys.CONTROL + 'a' worked for me until now, looks like something has changed either in Chrome or in Selenium so now it only sends 'a' char into my text_field which is not desired. Switched to element.clear() and it works perfectly with one line of code instead of 2 now, thank you! – Diphase

My answer is faster and more reliable than all of these: https://mcmap.net/q/126295/-clear-text-from-textarea-with-selenium – Uproar

Answer 3

I ran into a field where .clear() did not work. Using a combination of the first two answers worked for this field.

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

#...your code (I was using python 3)

driver.find_element_by_id('foo').send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + "a")
driver.find_element_by_id('foo').send_keys(Keys.DELETE)

Randers

driver.find_element_by_id('foo').send_keys(...) is the same solution like webElement.send_keys(...) That driver.find_element_by_id() is one way how to return WebElement. You can use another way to locate an element. – Prowl

Answer 4

In the most recent Selenium version, use:

driver.find_element_by_id('foo').clear()

Flanagan

Answer 5

In my experience, this turned out to be the most efficient

driver.find_element_by_css_selector('foo').send_keys(u'\ue009' + u'\ue003')

We are sending Ctrl + Backspace to delete all characters from the input, you can also replace backspace with delete.

EDIT: removed Keys dependency

Touzle

This is working with Python 3.9, latest version of browsers as well as latest selenium – Furl

Yes, right. Do you have any ideas why ...clear(); doesn't work? – Bessette

Answer 6

Am using selenium==3.141.0 and I don't know why

WebElement.clear()

is not working.

I used

WebElement.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'a')
WebElement.send_keys(Keys.DELETE)

Which perfectly worked for me.

Storyteller

This won't work on mac. My version works on all platforms: https://mcmap.net/q/126295/-clear-text-from-textarea-with-selenium – Uproar

Answer 7

The CTRL+A send_keys solution did not work for me in react. Testing in the browser directly, CTRL+A just sends the cursor to the start of the text element. Instead, this seems to be reliable for selecting all content in the element.

preferred_name_field.send_keys(Keys.SHIFT, Keys.ARROW_UP)
preferred_name_field.send_keys(Keys.DELETE)

Indebtedness

My version is also reliable and one line: https://mcmap.net/q/126295/-clear-text-from-textarea-with-selenium – Uproar

Answer 8

It is general syntax

driver.find_element_by_id('Locator value').clear();
driver.find_element_by_name('Locator value').clear();

Kempf

Answer 9

for java

driver.findelement(By.id('foo').clear();

or

webElement.clear();

If this element is a text entry element, this will clear the value.

Gastelum

Answer 10

I recommend:

WebElement.send_keys([Keys.BACKSPACE] * 1000)

This is much faster and more elegant than a while loop. And Keys.BACKSPACE works on Mac. These all didn't work for me on Chrome on Mac:

WebElement.clear()

WebElement.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'a')
WebElement.send_keys(Keys.DELETE)

while _ in range(1000):
    WebElement.send_keys(Keys.DELETE)

Uproar

Answer 11

With a simple call of clear() it appears in the DOM that the corresponding input/textarea component still has its old value, so any following changes on that component (e.g. filling the component with a new value) will not be processed in time.

If you take a look in the selenium source code you'll find that the clear()-method is documented with the following comment:

/** If this element is a text entry element, this will clear the value. Has no effect on other elements. Text entry elements are INPUT and TEXTAREA elements. Note that the events fired by this event may not be as you'd expect. In particular, we don't fire any keyboard or mouse events. If you want to ensure keyboard events are fired, consider using something like {@link #sendKeys(CharSequence...)} with the backspace key. To ensure you get a change event, consider following with a call to {@link #sendKeys(CharSequence...)} with the tab key. */

So using this helpful hint to clear an input/textarea (component that already has a value) AND assign a new value to it, you'll get some code like the following:

public void waitAndClearFollowedByKeys(By by, CharSequence keys) {
    LOG.debug("clearing element");
    wait(by, true).clear();
    sendKeys(by, Keys.BACK_SPACE.toString() + keys);
}

public void sendKeys(By by, CharSequence keysToSend) {
    WebElement webElement = wait(by, true);
    LOG.info("sending keys '{}' to {}", escapeProperly(keysToSend), by);
    webElement.sendKeys(keysToSend);
    LOG.info("keys sent");
}

private String escapeProperly(CharSequence keysToSend) {
    String result = "" + keysToSend;
    result = result.replace(Keys.TAB, "\\t");
    result = result.replace(Keys.ENTER, "\\n");
    result = result.replace(Keys.RETURN, "\\r");

    return result;
}

Sorry for this code being Java and not Python. Also, I had to skip out an additional "waitUntilPageIsReady()-method that would make this post way too long.

Hope this helps you on your journey with Selenium!

Exactitude

Answer 12

Try:

driver=self.driver
driver.find_element_by_xpath('Path').send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + "a")      
driver.find_element_by_xpath('Path').send_keys(Keys.BACK_SPACE)

Perspicacious

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please edit to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Dahle

Answer 13

driver.find_element_by_xpath("path").send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + u'\ue003') worked great with FireFox

• u'\ue003' is a BACK_SPACE for those like me - never remembering it)

Menchaca

Answer 14

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

element = driver.find_element_by_css_selector('foo') element.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL + Keys.BACKSPACE)

Cahoot

Please add code highlighting and explanation – Frankiefrankincense

Answer 15

If clear() is not working, you can simulate the press of Backspace multiple times using: driver.get_element_by_id('foo').send_keys(Keys.BACKSPACE)

To execute this multiple times, use:

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

# Replace 100 with the number of time you want to press backspace.
for i in range(0, 100): 
    driver.get_element_by_id('foo').send_keys(Keys.BACKSPACE)

Incurrent

Answer 16

First find the element

element = driver.find_element_by_id('your element id')

Clear text in Input or Textarea: If the element is input or textarea, you can directly remove the using clear() function.

element.clear()

Reset Radio button or Checkbox: Just click again the radio button or checkbox item.

element.click()

Deselect the Dropdow: In select, you can deselect using following ways.

Select select = new Select(element);

select.deselectByVisibleText("Female");
select.deselectByValue("1");
select.deselectByIndex(1);
select.deselectAll();

Gunfight

Answer 17

Try using this

text=((Keys.BACKSPACE*20)+(Keys.DELETE * 20))

Struble

Answer 18

Forcing input value to an empty string also works with the help of execute_script function

element = driver.find_element(By.ID,"some_element")
driver.execute_script('arguments[0].value = "0";', element)

Candlepin