Converting a WebElement type to a By type

Question

Is there any way to convert a WebElement type object to a By in selenium? Type casting did not work.

I have a function which only takes in By's, so I need to convert a WebElement to a By.

Maffick

I guess the function you already have uses the By to get a WebElement? Probably overloading the method will be the way to go. – Cytology

I don't think there's a way to do that. I think I'd need to see what you're trying to accomplish to suggest a good solution. My offhand suggestion is to create an object that has WebElement and By properties, and pass in element.By to your method. – Ingravescent

You could get the absolute xpath of the webelement using javascript and then create a By object from it. – Buffet

This isn't going to work. A WebElement isn't a By object in any sense. That's the point. So perhaps you should explain what you are trying to accomplish. – Sarmatia

I also have this problem My issue is that I have found an item, and then need to find a child of that item. parent = Find.By.Xpath(whatever) child = item.Find.By.Xpath(".//" + whatever2) But I need to pass the child's by to a method. I can use the by by itself, but then how do I limit the xpath to children of parent? – Inmate

Answer 1

If you are using a method which takes an argument of a WebElement, it is likely that you are considering the problem in a way that would be less effective than if you passed it a by selector instead. However, this method should fulfill your ask.

// return ByType of WebElement
public By toByVal(WebElement we) {
    // By format = "[foundFrom] -> locator: term"
    // see RemoteWebElement toString() implementation
    String[] data = we.toString().split(" -> ")[1].replace("]", "").split(": ");
    String locator = data[0];
    String term = data[1];

    switch (locator) {
    case "xpath":
        return By.xpath(term);
    case "css selector":
        return By.cssSelector(term);
    case "id":
        return By.id(term);
    case "tag name":
        return By.tagName(term);
    case "name":
        return By.name(term);
    case "link text":
        return By.linkText(term);
    case "class name":
        return By.className(term);
    }
    return (By) we;
}

Swami

Answer 2

I use this method and it works fine for me. To run this code block it requires Apache Commons IO library.

 /**
     * Converting WebElement to By locator
     *
     * @param webElement
     * @return By
     */
    public static By getByLocator(WebElement webElement) {
        String element = webElement.toString().split(
                "(?=\\sid:\\s|\\sname:\\s|\\sselector:\\s|\\slink text:|\\sxpath:\\s|" +
                        "By.id:\\s|By.name:\\s|By.tagName:\\s|By.className:\\s|By.cssSelector:\\s|" +
                        "By.linkText:\\s|By.partialLinkText:\\s|By.xpath:\\s)")[1];

        String[] locator = StringUtils.removeEnd(element, "]").split(":\\s");
        String method = locator[0].trim();
        if (method.equals("xpath"))
            return By.xpath(locator[1]);

        String selector = StringUtils.removeEnd(locator[1], "'");
        switch (method) {
            case "id":
            case "By.id":
                return By.id(selector);
            case "name":
            case "By.name":
                return By.name(selector);
            case "By.tagName":
                return By.tagName(selector);
            case "By.className":
                return By.className(selector);
            case "selector":
            case "By.cssSelector":
                return By.cssSelector(selector);
            case "By.linkText":
                return By.linkText(selector);
            case "link text":
            case "By.partialLinkText":
                return By.partialLinkText(selector);
            case "By.xpath":
                return By.name(selector);
            default:
                System.out.println("Error! [" + method + "]");
                return null;
        }
    }

Adachi

Answer 3

This could help.

private static WebElement returnElement(String stringElement) {
    if (stringElement == null) {
        return null;
    } else if (stringElement.contains("->")) {
        String[] splitElement = stringElement.split(" ");
        String locatorType = splitElement[6].replace(":", "");
        String locatorPath = null;
        if(locatorType.equalsIgnoreCase("xpath")) {
            locatorPath = stringElement.substring(stringElement.indexOf("//"), stringElement.length() -1);
        } else {
            locatorPath = splitElement[7].substring(0, splitElement[7].length() - 1);
        } 
        return returnElement(locatorType, locatorPath);
    } else {
        String[] splitElement = stringElement.split(" ");
        String locatorType = splitElement[4].substring(splitElement[4].lastIndexOf(".") + 1,
                splitElement[4].lastIndexOf(":"));
        int index = splitElement[5].length();
        String locatorPath = splitElement[5].substring(0, index - 1);
        return returnElement(locatorType, locatorPath);
    }
}

// Refreshing DOM Elements
private static WebElement returnElement(String locatorType, String locatorPath) {
    switch (locatorType.toLowerCase()) {
    case "id":
        return driver.findElement(By.id(locatorPath));

    case "xpath":
        return driver.findElement(By.xpath(locatorPath));

    case "name":
        return driver.findElement(By.name(locatorPath));

    case "classname":
        return driver.findElement(By.className(locatorPath));

    case "cssselector":
        return driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(locatorPath));

    case "linktext":
        return driver.findElement(By.linkText(locatorPath));

    case "tagname":
        return driver.findElement(By.tagName(locatorPath));

    default:
        throw new RuntimeException("Unknown locator " + locatorType + " : " + locatorPath);
    }
}

Macaco

Answer 4

You can also use the getBy() for converting into By element

let's say you got the following code

@FindBy (id = "some-id-goes-here")
private static ExtendedWebElement MyElementById;


public static ExtendedWebElement getMyElementById(){
    return MyElementById;
}

now you can convert it into By element like this

getMyElementById().getBy()

and use it inside ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(getMyElementById().getBy())

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