Selenium: Why find_element_by_partial_link_text finds the first match only?

Question

What I want to do:

I want to click all the links where partial text = "105611A5C7B9_Logs_"

Example:

First Link Text = 105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-06-04PM.tgz
Second Link Text = 105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-11-09PM.tgz
Third Link Text = 105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-09-18AM.tgz

If I click these links, it will download the files. I want to click all the file links which matches the partial text = "105611A5C7B9_Logs_"

HTML:

<a href="javascript:download('2018-11-15','105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-06-04PM.tgz','','105611A5C7B9','/2018/11/15/18/')">105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-06-04PM.tgz</a>

<a href="javascript:download('2018-11-15','105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-11-09PM.tgz','','105611A5C7B9','/2018/11/15/23/')">105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-11-09PM.tgz</a>

<a href="javascript:download('2018-11-15','105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-09-18AM.tgz','','105611A5C7B9','/2018/11/15/9/')">105611A5C7B9_Logs_11-15-18-09-18AM.tgz</a>  

What I tried:

link="105611A5C7B9_Logs_"

try:
    print(driver.find_element_by_partial_link_text(link).text)
    driver.find_element_by_partial_link_text(link).click()
except:
    print("Not Found")

This clicks the first link only. How can I click all the links that matches the partial text ?

Answer 1

It is mentioned in selenium specification that find_element will locate the very first element found on your webpage. To grab all elements you have to use find_elements

In your code you are using find_element_by_partial_link_text instead of find_elements_by_partial_link_text that's why getting only first element.

You should try with find_elements_by_partial_link_text it will return a list of WebElement.

You have to loop through that list to iterate all element which you are expecting.

Answer 2

From the above answer of @NarendraR, I understand that find_element will give the first match only. Here I need to use find_elements to get all matched elements.

Here is the solution:

link="105611A5C7B9_Logs_"
try:
    elements=driver.find_elements_by_partial_link_text(link)
    for element in elements:
        print(element.text)
        element.click()
except:
    print("Not Found")