Trying to validate a input text box but element lacks displayed text

Question

I am working on some automation tests and have gotten to a wall. When the page is loaded, a call is made to get data to prefill input fields from what I can tell.

Here is the element that I'm checking(Goal is get the prefilled text from the input type="text" name="tempname" to validate it is correct):

<div class="twelve columns">
          <label for="tempname">Template Name <span class="compulsion"> *</span></label>
          <input type="text" name="tempname" id="tempname">
          <h4 class="notice fielderror"></h4>
</div>

Typically in my Selenium test, I would return the element and use getAttribute() or getText() to return what I'm looking for and use an assertTrue or assertEquals.

I can't figure out how to get the text that is displayed within this element to validate it. Any ideas/tips would be really helpful!

Side note: I am using Selenium for my automation tests

Answer 1

Can you please try this approach?

element = FindElement(By.CssSelector("input[id='tempname']"))
string = element.getAttribute("value")

This string should have what you want.