How can I extract text within a specific HTML tag using Selenium?

On my second day of learning Selenium, I am looking to extract text from within specific HTML tags.

Here is a sample of the HTML code:

<div id="media-buttons" class="hide-if-no-js"/>

<textarea id="DescpRaw" class="ckeditor" name="DescpRaw" rows="13" cols="100" style="visibility: hidden; display: none;">

Cactus spines are produced from specialized structures
called areoles, a kind of highly reduced branch. Areoles
are an identifying feature of cacti.

</textarea>

Desired output:

Cactus spines are produced from specialized structures 
called areoles, a kind of highly reduced branch. Areoles 
are an identifying feature of cacti.

I attempted using Selenium driver below, but it returned empty results.

String bodyhtml = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//textarea[@name='DescpRaw']")).getText();

Appreciate your help!

javascriptselenium

Answer №1

When retrieving the body of an element, it is advisable to consider using IDs for faster performance.

Here is an optimized code snippet:

String bodyContent = driver.findElement(By.id("DescpRaw")).getAttribute("innerHTML");

Answer №2

Here are a few things to note...

  1. If a specific element has an ID, it is best practice to use that ID for identification. IDs are meant to be unique on the page according to HTML standards, making them the perfect identifier for any element.

  2. The issue you're encountering is likely due to the TEXTAREA being hidden. This can be determined by observing the 

    style="visibility: hidden; display: none;"
    attribute on the element. Selenium operates by interacting with a webpage as a human user would, so it will not interact with elements that are not visible. To address this problem, consider finding a way to reveal or make visible the textarea field by triggering a button click or similar action before retrieving its text content. When dealing with a TEXTAREA field, using .getAttribute("value") on the element may be necessary.

    There are alternative methods to reveal the element such as using Javascript to extract the text content or employing .getAttribute("innerHTML") as suggested by others.

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