Locators provide a means to interact with these elements during test automation.
Selenium provides several types of locators that can be used to identify elements on a web page. The commonly used locators in Selenium are:
ID: The ID attribute of an element is unique on a web page, and it can be used to locate a specific element. The ID locator is often the preferred choice when it is available.
Name: The Name attribute is another way to locate elements, but it may not always be unique. It is useful when elements have a distinctive name attribute value.
Class Name: The Class Name locator uses the class attribute of an element to locate it. Multiple elements can have the same class name, so it is necessary to ensure that the class name used in the locator uniquely identifies the desired element.
Tag Name: The Tag Name locator selects elements based on their HTML tag name, such as 'div', 'input', 'a', etc. It is helpful when dealing with groups of similar elements.
Link Text: The Link Text locator is used specifically for locating anchor (link) elements based on the visible text within the link. It is useful when dealing with links and navigation.
Partial Link Text: Similar to Link Text, the Partial Link Text locator also finds anchor elements based on a partial match of the visible text within the link.
CSS Selector: CSS selectors allow for more advanced and flexible element selection based on CSS properties, classes, IDs, and hierarchies. They provide powerful ways to locate elements on a page.
XPath: XPath is another powerful locator strategy that uses XML path expressions to traverse the structure of an XML document, including HTML documents. XPath provides a wide range of expression options to locate elements based on their attributes, text content, relationships, and more.
When automating tests with Selenium, the choice of locator depends on the structure and attributes of the web page and the specific element being targeted. It's important to select a reliable locator that uniquely identifies the element and is robust enough to withstand any changes to the page structure.
