Selecting value from the Dropdown using selenium web-driver

Question

I have a small doubt over here on selecting one of the value from the drop down using selenium . When i generated a code using selenium-IDE it gave me a set of codes for selecting from the drop-down . Code is as follows-->

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input.search")).click();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//table[@id='project-add-table']/tbody/tr[4]/td[3]/div/div[2]/div[3]")).click();
new Select(driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("select"))).selectByVisibleText("Test");

So can anybody tell what is the use of that second line of code ?After clicking to the dropdown why cant we directly select the required element?

HTML -->

<td class="environmentTd" required="">
   <div class="ui fluid search dropdown env selection">
      <select>
         <option value="SB">Sandbox</option>
         <option value="DEV">Development</option>
         <option value="QA">Test</option>
         <option value="PROD">Production</option>
         <option value="PP">Pre Production</option>
         <option value="UAT">UAT</option>
         <option value="DR">DR</option>
      </select>
      <i class="dropdown icon"></i><input class="search" autocomplete="off" tabindex="0">
      <div class="text">Sandbox</div>
      <div class="menu transition hidden" tabindex="-1">
         <div class="item active selected" data-value="SB">Sandbox</div>
         <div class="item" data-value="DEV">Development</div>
         <div class="item" data-value="QA">Test</div>
         <div class="item" data-value="PROD">Production</div>
         <div class="item" data-value="PP">Pre Production</div>
         <div class="item" data-value="UAT">UAT</div>
         <div class="item" data-value="DR">DR</div>
      </div>
   </div>
</td>

only third line of code is enough to select the value from dropdown. may be, first two lines are not related to dropdown selection. — Murthi
Not it wont work with 3rd line alone .It gives exception .Its not able to find the element — Akshay Krishna
Even i feel just 3rd like will be enough to select value from dropdown. — Pradeep hebbar

hiren hiren · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-17T12:47:29

If your select tag is visible in DOM without you clicking the dropdown, just use the third line

Select select = new Select(driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("select")));
select.selectByValue("QA");

Otherwise, click on the dropdown which will probably generate the DIV with class

class="menu transition hidden"

and then you can use the select line.

Selecting value from the Dropdown using selenium web-driver

3 Answers