How to Find Class Names Using Selenium with Python

Discover how to effectively locate elements by class name using Selenium in Python, and learn the correct method to find classes that contain spaces.
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This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/68556110/ asked by the user 'James Cook' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/13377970/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/68557181/ provided by the user 'cruisepandey' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/9444073/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

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How to Find Class Names Using Selenium with Python: A Complete Guide

When automating web applications for testing purposes, one common challenge developers encounter is locating elements in a webpage. A popular tool for this task is Selenium, a web testing framework that allows you to interact with browsers just as a user would. However, there can be instances where finding an HTML element by its class name fails to work, especially if the class name contains spaces. This is a common issue faced by many users, and understanding the reason behind it is crucial for effective automation.

The Problem

You are trying to find an element's class name using Selenium in Python, specifically this class: cell-content cell-colshopCapacity. Below is the code snippet you tried:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

When executing this code, you received an empty list, indicating that Selenium could not find any elements associated with that class name. Intriguingly, when you used driver.page_source, the expected HTML was returned, which contains the desired class name. This raises the question: why can’t you find the class name as intended?

Understanding the Issue

The main problem stems from how Selenium interprets class names. In HTML, when classes are separated by spaces, they are recognized as individual classes, not a single class name. As a result, when you use the method find_elements_by_class_name() with a string that includes spaces, Selenium searches for an exact match to a single class name, which fails in this case.

Example of the HTML Structure

Consider the following snippet from the HTML you encountered:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Here, cell-content and cell-colshopCapacity are treated as two separate classes. When using find_elements_by_class_name(), Selenium would look for a class with the exact name of cell-content cell-colshopCapacity, which does not exist.

The Solution

To effectively find elements that contain multiple class names, you can switch from using the class name method to the CSS selector method. This approach allows you to specify multiple class names without spaces. The correct way to find the desired element is as follows:

Using CSS Selectors

You can utilize the find_elements_by_css_selector() method for accurate results:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Why Use CSS Selectors?

Flexibility: CSS selectors allow you to target elements with multiple class names easily.

Precision: You can define the elements you want to select more accurately using CSS rules.

Widely Used: CSS selectors are a standardized approach across different automation tools and libraries.

Conclusion

Understanding how Selenium interacts with HTML elements when it comes to finding classes is essential for anyone working with web automation. By realizing that class names with spaces are treated as multiple classes, you can avoid common pitfalls. Using CSS selectors instead empowers you to be more precise and effective in your Selenium automation tasks.

Try employing this method in your projects, and you’ll find locating elements becomes far more straightforward!

Keep experimenting and happy coding!