Please help! Unable to select dynamic elements

Support
1

I’m currently trying to find & click on each element present on a screen. Currently there are 5 elements but they are dynamic and the number of elements on the screen will vary from time to time.

I would like to try and automate them one by one, whatever is present on the screen.

I have been searching around on how to generate dynamic xpaths for appium/mobile devices but haven’t found anything. There is alot of material online about web stuff but not mobile. Therefore i tried generating my own “dynamic” xpath which i included in the code below.

Here’s the code i wrote:

@When("^I click on the present ctas$")
public void i_click_on_the_present_ctas() throws Throwable {
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(destinationDetailsScreen.Back_Btn));
driver.swipe(325, 1016, 305, 291, 3000);

    List<MobileElement> linkSearch = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View["));
    int checkLink = linkSearch.size();
    if (checkLink != 0) {
        driver.findElement(By.xpath("//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[")).click();


    }
}

}

The xpath used in the code above was the part of the xpath which is static and i removed the rest. Please find below the default xpaths per element (4 elements) as captured via appium inspector:

//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[3]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.Button[1]
//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[3]/android.view.View[2]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.Button[1]
//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[2]/android.view.View[3]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.Button[1]
//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[2]/android.view.View[4]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.Button[1]

Here’s the error logs when i run the above method:

Scenario: test the destination journey Time elapsed: 0.007 sec <<< ERROR!
org.openqa.selenium.InvalidSelectorException: Argument was an invalid selector (e.g. XPath/CSS). (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)
Command duration or timeout: 21 milliseconds
For documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/invalid_selector_exception.html
Build info: version: ‘2.46.0’, revision: ‘61506a4624b13675f24581e453592342b7485d71’, time: ‘2015-06-04 10:22:50’
System info: host: ‘Parids-MacBook-Pro-2.local’, ip: ‘192.168.15.28’, os.name: ‘Mac OS X’, os.arch: ‘x86_64’, os.version: ‘10.11.6’, java.version: ‘1.8.0_101’
Driver info: io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver
Capabilities [{app=/Users/paridbego/Documents/appium_native1/builds/dev/MeineTUI.apk, networkConnectionEnabled=true, warnings={}, databaseEnabled=false, deviceName=TA06802DPO, platform=LINUX, desired={app=/Users/paridbego/Documents/appium_native1/builds/dev/MeineTUI.apk, platformName=Android, deviceName=TA06802DPO}, platformVersion=5.1, webStorageEnabled=false, locationContextEnabled=false, browserName=Android, takesScreenshot=true, javascriptEnabled=true, platformName=Android}]
Session ID: ff77b245-e329-4b8c-95ae-c0334701e538
*** Element info: {Using=xpath, value=//android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.widget.LinearLayout[1]/android.widget.FrameLayout[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.widget.ScrollView[1]/android.view.View[1]/android.view.View[}
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.createThrowable(ErrorHandler.java:204)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.ErrorHandler.throwIfResponseFailed(ErrorHandler.java:156)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.execute(RemoteWebDriver.java:605)
at io.appium.java_client.DefaultGenericMobileDriver.execute(DefaultGenericMobileDriver.java:27)
at io.appium.java_client.AppiumDriver.execute(AppiumDriver.java:1)
at io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver.execute(AndroidDriver.java:1)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElements(RemoteWebDriver.java:383)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElementsByXPath(RemoteWebDriver.java:459)
at io.appium.java_client.DefaultGenericMobileDriver.findElementsByXPath(DefaultGenericMobileDriver.java:103)
at io.appium.java_client.AppiumDriver.findElementsByXPath(AppiumDriver.java:159)
at org.openqa.selenium.By$ByXPath.findElements(By.java:353)
at org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver.findElements(RemoteWebDriver.java:346)
at io.appium.java_client.DefaultGenericMobileDriver.findElements(DefaultGenericMobileDriver.java:32)
at io.appium.java_client.AppiumDriver.findElements(AppiumDriver.java:126)
at com.tui.steps.DestinationDetailsSteps.i_click_on_the_present_ctas(DestinationDetailsSteps.java:36)
at ✽.And I click on the present ctas(EndtoEnd.feature:16)

Results :

Tests in error:
And I click on the present ctas(Scenario: test the destination journey): Argument was an invalid selector (e.g. XPath/CSS). (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)(…)
Scenario: test the destination journey: Argument was an invalid selector (e.g. XPath/CSS). (WARNING: The server did not provide any stacktrace information)(…)

Tests run: 9, Failures: 0, Errors: 2, Skipped: 0

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 01:19 min
[INFO] Finished at: 2016-08-25T12:50:39+01:00
[INFO] Final Memory: 20M/246M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.12.4:test (default-test) on project native: There are test failures.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] Please refer to /Users/paridbego/Documents/appium_native1/target/surefire-reports for the individual test results.
[ERROR] -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoFailureException
Parids-MacBook-Pro-2:appium_native1 paridbego$

Thanks in advance for your help!!!

2

your xpath is not properly terminated. no closure clamp at the end. Alternatively, try to remove the clamp opening at the end of xpath.
Maybe try find elements by resource-id?

3

Hello there

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated. The app is based on Appcelerator Titanium framework and apparently you cannot assign resource-id’s which is super frustrating. Since my initial post here I tried various ways of formating the xpath but with little success so far. I will try an xpath using the content description and see if that works.

4

Maybe the loop. First gets the page and then click elements. Next again gets page and equals a first one. If the page are different click elements. if not ends loop

5

Hi ,

Yes i did partially fix the issue. However i can’t seem to find a way to scroll to all elements and click on each one. Currently i scroll up and down the page and click on most of the elements and not all. Any ideas on how i can click on all elements present in the screen? Here’s the code i’m currently using:

driver.scrollTo(“destinationCTA”);

   List<MobileElement> linkSearch = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//android.widget.Button[@content-desc='destinationCTA.']"));

    for (int i=1; i<=linkSearch.size(); i++)
    {
        linkSearch = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//android.widget.Button[@content-desc='destinationCTA.']"));
        wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(linkSearch.get(i-1)));
        linkSearch.get(i-1).click();
        destinationDetailsScreen.Back_Btn.click();
    }

Thanks in advance for your help!