Type in a textbox via python: unable to locate element

Question

I'm trying to locate an element using python selenium, and have the html below:

<input class="form-control" type="text" placeholder="University Search">

I couldn't locate where to type what I want to type.

from selenium import webdriver
import time

driver = webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=r"D:\Python\Lib\site-packages\selenium\chromedriver.exe")
driver.get('https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2020/engineering-technology')

#<input class="form-control" type="text" placeholder="University Search">

text_area = driver.find_element_by_name('University Search')
text_area.send_keys("oxford university")

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 19 '20 at 00:50

1

You are attempting to use find_element_by_name and yet this element has no name attribute defined. You need to look for the element with the specific placeholder attribute you are interested in - you can use find_element_by_xpath for this:

text_area = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@placeholder='University Search']")

Also aside: When I open my browser, I don't see an element with "University Search" in the placeholder, only a search bar with "Site Search" -- but this might be a regional and/or browser difference.

answered Dec 19 '20 at 00:50

costaparas

4,683
11
14
25

This give an error: "selenium.common.exceptions.Element Not Interactable Exception: Message: element not interactable" – Dartagnan Dec 19 '20 at 01:13
Most likely there's a popup hiding it... Standard solution is to use `ActionChains`, try https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44119081/how-do-you-fix-the-element-not-interactable-exception – costaparas Dec 19 '20 at 01:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 19 '20 at 01:55

Make sure you wait for the page to load using webdriver waits,click the popup and then proceed to target the element to send keys to.

driver.get('https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2020/engineering-technology')
driver.maximize_window()
wait=WebDriverWait(driver, 10)
wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//button[text()='OK, I agree']"))).click()
text_area=wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR ,"td.uni-search.uni.sorting_disabled > div > input")))
text_area.send_keys("oxford university")

Imports

from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait 
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Element to target

<input class="form-control" type="text" placeholder="University Search">

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 19 '20 at 22:54

To send a character sequence to the element you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using css_selector:

driver.find_element_by_css_selector("input.form-control[placeholder='University search']").send_keys("oxford university")

Using xpath:

driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@class='form-control' and @placeholder='University search']").send_keys("oxford university")

Ideally, to send a character sequence to the element you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using CSS_SELECTOR:

driver.get("https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2020/engineering-technology")
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input.form-control[placeholder='University search']"))).send_keys("oxford university")

Using XPATH:

driver.get("https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2020/engineering-technology")
WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//input[@class='form-control' and @placeholder='University search']"))).send_keys("oxford university")

Note: You have to add the following imports :

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

Browser Snapshot:

References

You can find a couple of relevant discussions on NoSuchElementException in:

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 19 '20 at 00:48

0

Very close, try the XPath when all else fails:

text_area = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[@id='qs-rankings']/thead/tr[3]/td[2]/div/input")

You can copy the full/relative XPath to clipboard if you're inspecting the webpage's html.

answered Dec 19 '20 at 00:48

Problemo

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What's the logic behind this code? Especially "[@id='qs-rankings']/thead/tr[3]/td[2]/div/input" part. – Dartagnan Dec 19 '20 at 01:09
XPath is a query language used to navigate XML-like structures. By following the 'path' that leads to the `input` element starting from either the root element of the webpage or a relative one (the middle of the DOM structure), you can locate specific elements using this method. In this particular instance, you are looking at a relative XPath that begins at the `table` element with the id `qs-rankings`. – Problemo Dec 19 '20 at 01:33

Type in a textbox via python: unable to locate element

4 Answers4

References