Locating elements in Selenium using Python by matching only a portion of its id

I am currently working with Selenium in Python and I need to locate an element using only part of its id name. What would be the best approach for this?

For instance, let's say I have already located an item with the id name coption5 like so:

sixth_item = driver.find_element_by_id("coption5")

Is there a way I can locate this element just by using coption?

Answer №1

If you want to locate the element that matches your criteria, you can use the following code:

sixth_item = driver.find_element_by_id("coption5")

To find this element using only the coption identifier, you have a few options with different Locator Strategies:

  • Using XPATH and starts-with():

    sixth_item = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[starts-with(@id, 'coption')]")
    
  • Using XPATH and contains():

    sixth_item = driver.find_element_by_xpath("//*[contains(@id, 'coption')]")
    
  • Using CSS_SELECTOR and ^ (wildcard of starts-with):

    sixth_item = driver.find_element_by_css_selector("[id^='coption']")
    
  • Using CSS_SELECTOR and * (wildcard of contains):

    sixth_item = driver.find_element_by_css_selector("[id*='coption']")
    

For more information

You can read further discussions on dynamic CssSelectors in the following links:

  • How to get selectors with dynamic part inside using Selenium with Python?
  • Java Selenium webdriver expression finding dynamic element by ccs that starts with and ends with
  • How to click a dynamic link within a Drupal 8 website using xpath/css selector while automating through Selenium and Python
  • Finding elements by CSS selector with ChromeDriver (Selenium) in Python

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