XPath is broken when changes are made

1
votes

This is the current situation: There are several files and folders in a specific location. Once you hover over a file or a folder, an icon appears then you can click on that icon and a menu will appear. From that menu a user can select any action(rename, move,etc). The problem is that the XPath which is provided by FirePath is broken whenever a new file/folder is created/added in the location.

This is the initial line of code which works fine until the XPath is broken:

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='main_files_view']/ol/li[6]/ul/li[4]")).click();

Whenever a new item is added in the location, the index with value "6" can change to "7" (new position of the file) and the XPath generated is now slightly different:

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id='main_files_view']/ol/li[7]/ul/li[4]")).click();

How can I change that XPath and makes it robust so that no matter the number of items added/removed, the XPath will not break?

Below is the section of the HTML which is related to the XPath provided by FirePath. When the XPath is provided, the last class is also highlighted.

 <li class="storage_item document file_object even ui-draggable" data-thumb-translation="Translated" data-possible-actions="Rename Delete Share Move View" data-file-size="0 bytes" data-item-type="file" data-display-name="solids_A" data-name="solids_A.raas" data-id="bd48453c752043d98afb237b86ee88a3">
    <a class="file_name" href="#/Item/Details?id=bd48453c752043d98afb237b86ee88a3&itemtype=File&tab=Default">
    <img class="file_list_icon" width="16" height="16" src="https://api-staging.autodesk.com/content/gateway/2013.1.307595.626/z/Content/images/fileIcons/small/raas.png"/>
    <div class="name_container">
    <ul class="tools">
        <li class="preview_trigger"/>
        <li class="comment_balloon none has_tooltip" data-tooltip-contents="#comment_balloon_tooltip" data-comments="0">
        <li class="categorize action has_tooltip" data-tooltip="Categories"/>
        <li class="document_tools has_tooltip" data-tooltip="Actions"/>
    </ul>
</li>

I am using Selenium 2.0, on Eclipse IDE.

3
xpathseleniumwebdriverselenium-webdriverautomated-tests
Could you please post more HTML? Is "data-name" attribute unique for each item? - JacekM
@JacekM: Yes, data-name attribute is unique for each item. - T4000

3 Answers

2
votes

If the data-name is unique, then you have

//*[@id='main_files_view']/ol/li[@data-name='solids_A.raas']/ul/li[contains(@class, 'document_tools')]

Css Selector is even better than XPath in this case:

#main_files_view li[data-name='solids_A.raas'] .document_tools
0
votes

Try this:

By.XPath("//*[@id='main_files_view']/ol/li/ul/li[4]")

You do not have to define every index in an xpath and often if it's just one that change, removing that index will work.

0
votes

In general you should avoid xpaths in your tests. Css selectors are faster (especially in IE) and more readable. If data-name is unique then this should work:

webDriver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#main_files_view li[data-name='solids_A.raas'] li.document_tools"));

If you really need an xpath the one provided by user1177636 will also do the job.