Pressing Ctrl + A in Selenium WebDriver

Question

Is there a way to press the Ctrl + A keys using Selenium WebDriver?

I checked the Selenium libraries and found that Selenium allows key press of special and function keys only.

Edelsten

You can get the answer from: #11579268 – Entresol

The programming language was revealed in a comment to an answer. – Oxy

Answer 1

One more solution (in Java, because you didn't tell us your language - but it works the same way in all languages with Keys class):

String selectAll = Keys.chord(Keys.CONTROL, "a");
driver.findElement(By.whatever("anything")).sendKeys(selectAll);

You can use this to select the whole text in an <input>, or on the whole page (just find the html element and send this to it).

---

For using Selenium Ruby bindings:

There's no chord() method in the Keys class in Ruby bindings. Therefore, as suggested by Hari Reddy, you'll have to use Selenium Advanced user interactions API, see ActionBuilder:

    driver.action.key_down(:control)
                 .send_keys("a")
                 .key_up(:control)
                 .perform

Reproach

i missed to tell by language. I use ruby with selenium – Edelsten

Thanks. But this does not work for me. Still i could not copy all the texts in the editor. i am using selenium 2.20 on firefox 3.6 or firefox 11. – Edelsten

Worked for me with the selenium-webdriver ruby gem, using the firefox driver but this isn't working with the chrome driver. – Conger

Same for me. Works in firefox but not chrome. – Dex

I believe in ruby you can just do send_keys(:control, "a") – Rivi

Answer 2

To click Ctrl+A, you can do it with Actions

  Actions action = new Actions(); 
  action.keyDown(Keys.CONTROL).sendKeys(String.valueOf('\u0061')).perform();

\u0061 represents the character 'a'

\u0041 represents the character 'A'

To press other characters refer the unicode character table - http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0000.pdf

Dead

Don't forget to have keyUp of the CONTROL Key or you will have weird errors in future tests. – Shoebill

A more complete answer should include keyUp. As the OP has not left the building, that should be possible (also verifying that it actually works). You can edit your answer. – Oxy

Answer 3

In Selenium for C#, sending Keys.Control simply toggles the Control key's state: if it's up, then it becomes down; if it's down, then it becomes up. So to simulate pressing Control+A, send Keys.Control twice, once before sending "a" and then after.

For example, if we is an input IWebElement, the following statement will select all of its contents:

we.SendKeys(Keys.Control + "a" + Keys.Control);

Triciatrick

Great. By using your comment, In R lang using the Rselenium I get the result of Control+A too. In this case I had to type: page$sendKeysToActiveElement(list(key = 'control',"a", key = 'control')) – Geronto

It also works in Python and for several keys (though the identifiers for the keys are in uppercase and the name of the function from Python is in snake case - send_keys). E.g. for Shift + Alt + Y: send_keys(Keys.SHIFT + Keys.ALT + "y" + Keys.SHIFT + Keys.ALT) – Oxy

Answer 4

You could try this:

driver.findElement(By.xpath(id("anything")).sendKeys(Keys.CONTROL + "a");

Ldopa

Thanks, this helped me for my python application, using driver.send_keys(Keys.TAB) – Ramentum

Answer 5

Since Ctrl+A maps to ASCII code value 1 (Ctrl+B to 2, up to, Ctrl+Z to 26).

Try:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.IE;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.UI;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Interactions;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Internal;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Remote;

namespace SeleniumHqTest
{
    class Test
    {
            IWebDriver driver = new InternetExplorerDriver();
            driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("http://localhost");
            IWebElement el = driver.FindElement(By.Id("an_element_id"));
            char c = '\u0001'; // ASCII code 1 for Ctrl-A
            el.SendKeys(Convert.ToString(c));
            driver.Quit();
    }
}

Petite

That is true in a 1980s terminal, but does it also work here? – Oxy

Answer 6

For Python:

ActionChains(driver).key_down(Keys.CONTROL).send_keys("a").key_up(Keys.CONTROL).perform();

Gay

Answer 7

The simplest answer in C# (if you are C# inclined).

Actions action = new Actions(); 
action.KeyDown(OpenQA.Selenium.Keys.Control).SendKeys("a").KeyUp(OpenQA.Selenium.Keys.Control).perform();

This answer is almost given by Hari Reddy, but I have fixed the case which he'd got wrong on some keywords, added the KeyUp or you get in a mess leaving the control key down.

I've also added the clarification on OpenQA.Selenium.Keys, because you may also be using Windows.Forms on the same class as I was an require this clarity.

Lastly, I type "a" because I found that to be the simplest way and I can see no suggestion from the OP that they don't want the simplest answer.

Many thanks to Hari Reddy though as I was a novice in Actions class usage and I was writing many different commands. Chaining them together the way he showed is quicker :-)

Repulsive

Answer 8

Below code worked for me.

WebElement textbox = driver.findElement(By.id("username"));
textbox.sendKeys("Testing");
textbox.sendKeys(Keys.CONTROL+"A");

Raglan

Thank you this worked for me.. and this is better than actions class KeyDown and KeyUp method, facing some wired issue when using actions Key method.to preform keypress actions – Skimmer

Answer 9

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

Actions action = new Actions(driver); 

action.keyDown(Keys.CONTROL).sendKeys("a").keyUp(Keys.CONTROL).perform();

This method removes the extra call ( String.ValueOf() ) to convert unicode to string.

Ioved

Answer 10

I found that in Ruby, you can pass two arguments to send_keys

Like this:

element.send_keys(:control, 'A')

Dex

Answer 11

It works for me:

OpenQA.Selenium.Interactions.Actions action 
    = new OpenQA.Selenium.Interactions.Actions(browser);
action.KeyDown(OpenQA.Selenium.Keys.Control)
    .SendKeys("a").KeyUp(OpenQA.Selenium.Keys.Control).Perform();

Deli

Answer 12

By using the Robot class in Java:

import java.awt.Robot;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;

public class Test1
{
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception
    {
        WebDriver d1 = new FirefoxDriver();
        d1.navigate().to("https://www.youtube.com/");
        Thread.sleep(3000);
        Robot rb = new Robot();
        rb.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_TAB);
        rb.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_TAB);
        rb.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_TAB);
        rb.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_TAB);

        // Perform [Ctrl+A] Operation - it works
        rb.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL);
        rb.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_A);

        // It needs to release key after pressing
        rb.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_A);
        rb.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL);
        Thread.sleep(3000);
    }
}

Barbarbarbara

rb means robot? and where you initialize rb ? :) – Commissariat

@Csanesz: Yes, rb is the instance of Robot – Entresol

You can initialize Robot as: Robot rb = new Robot(); – Entresol

Answer 13

This is what worked for me using C# (Visual Studio 2015) with Selenium:

new Actions(driver).SendKeys(Keys.Control + "A").Perform();

You can add as many keys as wanted using (+) in between.

Hubbell

This not working for me, WebDriver, Version=3.141.0.0. C# VS 2019 (I think the VS version doesn't matter) – Stele

Answer 14

Java

The Robot class will work much more efficiently than sending the keys through Selenium sendkeys. Please try:

Example:

Robot rb = new Robot();
rb.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_CONTROL);
rb.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_A);

To use the above Robot class, you need to import java.awt.Robot;'.

Dedal

Answer 15

Actions act = new Actions(driver);
act.keyDown(Keys.CONTROL).sendKeys("a").keyUp(Keys.CONTROL).build().perform();

Durwyn

Thank you for this code snippet, which might provide some limited, immediate help. A proper explanation would greatly improve its long-term value by showing why this is a good solution to the problem, and would make it more useful to future readers with other, similar questions. Please edit your answer to add some explanation, including the assumptions you've made. – Arabel

Generally it is better to add some text in your answer to explain better to the person who asked the question: it is not guarantee he understands directly from the code. – Inelastic

Isn't use of keyDown() required (not a rhetorical question)? – Oxy