What is the correct way to select an <option> using Selenium's Python WebDriver

Question

I would like to select an <option> child of a <select> using the Python WebDriver.

I have a reference to the option WebElement I wish to select and have tried select() and click() methods but neither works.

What is the correct way to select an <option>?

Answer 1

The easiest way that I have found was to do something along the lines of:

el = driver.find_element_by_id('id_of_select')
for option in el.find_elements_by_tag_name('option'):
    if option.text == 'The Options I Am Looking For':
        option.click() # select() in earlier versions of webdriver

This may have some runtime issues if there are a large number of options, but for us it suffices, hope that helps

Answer 2

I think using selenium.webdriver.support.ui.Select is the cleanest way:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select, WebDriverWait
b = webdriver.Firefox()
# navigate to the page
select = Select(b.find_element_by_id(....))
print select.options
print [o.text for o in select.options] # these are string-s
select.select_by_visible_text(....)

See also: http://selenium.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/docs/api/py/webdriver_support/selenium.webdriver.support.select.html

Answer 3

Similar to Will's answer, but finds the <select> by its element name, and clicks based on the <option> text.

from selenium import webdriver
b = webdriver.Firefox()
b.find_element_by_xpath("//select[@name='element_name']/option[text()='option_text']").click()

Answer 4

I had a similar problem and was able to resolve it by finding the elements by xpath:

from selenium import webdriver
b = webdriver.Firefox()
#...some commands here
b.find_element_by_xpath("//select/option[@value='The Options I am Looking for']").click()