xpath query for specific String value

Question

My project is crashing with: Element info: {Using=xpath, value=//a[contains(text(), 'Books')]/@href}.

The output (crash):

thufir@dur:~/NetBeansProjects/com.toscrape.books.selenium$ 
thufir@dur:~/NetBeansProjects/com.toscrape.books.selenium$ gradle clean run

> Task :run
1545499644656   mozrunner::runner       INFO    Running command: "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox" "-marionette" "--headless" "-foreground" "-no-remote" "-profile" "/tmp/rust_mozprofile.t8NF7Id7Xl9i"
*** You are running in headless mode.
1545499645464   [email protected]     WARN    Loading extension '[email protected]': Reading manifest: Invalid host permission: resource://pdf.js/
1545499645467   [email protected]     WARN    Loading extension '[email protected]': Reading manifest: Invalid host permission: about:reader*
1545499649326   Marionette      INFO    Listening on port 39039
1545499649779   Marionette      WARN    TLS certificate errors will be ignored for this session
Dec 22, 2018 9:27:29 AM org.openqa.selenium.remote.ProtocolHandshake createSession
INFO: Detected dialect: W3C
JavaScript warning: http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js, line 1: Using //@ to indicate sourceMappingURL pragmas is deprecated. Use //# instead
Dec 22, 2018 9:27:32 AM dur.bounceme.net.SeleniumBase.WelcomePage <init>
INFO: http://books.toscrape.com/
Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: TypeError: Expected an element or WindowProxy, got: [object Attr href="index.html"]
Build info: version: '3.141.59', revision: 'e82be7d358', time: '2018-11-14T08:17:03'
System info: host: 'dur', ip: '127.0.1.1', os.name: 'Linux', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '4.18.0-13-generic', java.version: '1.8.0_191'
Driver info: org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver
Capabilities {acceptInsecureCerts: true, browserName: firefox, browserVersion: 64.0, javascriptEnabled: true, moz:accessibilityChecks: false, moz:geckodriverVersion: 0.23.0, moz:headless: true, moz:processID: 26227, moz:profile: /tmp/rust_mozprofile.t8NF7I..., moz:shutdownTimeout: 60000, moz:useNonSpecCompliantPointerOrigin: false, moz:webdriverClick: true, pageLoadStrategy: normal, platform: LINUX, platformName: LINUX, platformVersion: 4.18.0-13-generic, rotatable: false, setWindowRect: true, timeouts: {implicit: 0, pageLoad: 300000, script: 30000}, unhandledPromptBehavior: dismiss and notify}
Session ID: ed555cc0-75b3-4647-8ff8-5f067395eeb3
*** Element info: {Using=xpath, value=//a[contains(text(), 'Books')]/@href}
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
        at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.http.W3CHttpResponseCodec.createException(W3CHttpResponseCodec.java:187)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.http.W3CHttpResponseCodec.decode(W3CHttpResponseCodec.java:122)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.http.W3CHttpResponseCodec.decode(W3CHttpResponseCodec.java:49)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.HttpCommandExecutor.execute(HttpCommandExecutor.java:158)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.service.DriverCommandExecutor.execute(DriverCommandExecutor.java:83)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:552)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElement(RemoteWebDriver.java:323)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElementByXPath(RemoteWebDriver.java:428)
        at org.openqa.selenium.By$ByXPath.findElement(By.java:353)
        at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElement(RemoteWebDriver.java:315)
        at dur.bounceme.net.SeleniumBase.WelcomePage.populateCatalogue(WelcomePage.java:26)
        at dur.bounceme.net.SeleniumBase.App.initSelenium(App.java:26)
        at dur.bounceme.net.SeleniumBase.App.main(App.java:14)

> Task :run FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':run'.
> Process 'command '/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/bin/java'' finished with non-zero exit value 1

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output. Run with --scan to get full insights.

* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org

BUILD FAILED in 10s
4 actionable tasks: 3 executed, 1 up-to-date
thufir@dur:~/NetBeansProjects/com.toscrape.books.selenium$ 

Up to the xpath query everything seems fine:

package dur.bounceme.net.SeleniumBase;

import java.util.logging.Logger;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;

class WelcomePage {

    private static final Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(App.class.getName());
    private WebDriver webDriver = null;

    private WelcomePage() {
    }

    private WelcomePage(WebDriver webDriver) {
        this.webDriver = webDriver;
        LOG.info(webDriver.getCurrentUrl());
    }

    static WelcomePage init(WebDriver webDriver) {
        return new WelcomePage(webDriver);
    }

    void populateCatalogue() {
        WebElement webElement = webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(text(), 'Books')]/@href"));
        LOG.info(webElement.getText());
    }

}

How do I locate the WebElement for the "Books" link at:

http://books.toscrape.com/

I'm looking to grab the catalogue categories.

Answer 1

You should use .getAttribute("href"); so that your code would look like:

WebElement webElement = webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(text(), 'Books')]" );
LOG.info(webElement.getAttribute("href"));