Use Python Selenium to get span text

Question

This should be easy, but I can't get it to work. I'm running a little demo using the Google homepage as a test.

Here's my script:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
import time

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get("http://www.google.com") # Load page

time.sleep(0.2)

#top nav elements
elems = browser.find_elements_by_xpath("//span[contains(@class, 'gbts')]") 

for e in elems:
    print e.get_attribute('text')

browser.close()

It returns:

None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None
None

So I think it's grabbing the right elements, but perhaps not the right attribute? Not sure. I also tried to print e.text() but that spit out:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "sample.py", line 14, in <module>
    print e.text()
TypeError: 'unicode' object is not callable

Any thoughts?

*Edit - Possible Solution? *

e.get_attribute('innerHTML') seems to work.

I was having the same issue and your Edit-Possible Solution works for me too. e.get_attribute('innerHTML') — Lucian Thorr
– Lucian Thorr, Commented Sep 12, 2016 at 17:01

root · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-29 19:48:11Z

42

This should do it:

from selenium import webdriver
browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get("http://www.google.com")
for elem in browser.find_elements_by_xpath('.//span[@class = "gbts"]'):
    print elem.text

text is a property of the WebElement class, thus it is not callable.

class WebElement(object):
    """Represents an HTML element.       
    ...
    ...

    @property
    def text(self):
        """Gets the text of the element."""
        return self._execute(Command.GET_ELEMENT_TEXT)['value']

You have two alternatives to get the third match:

#  1. Modify your xpath expression
browser.find_elements_by_xpath('(.//span[@class = "gbts"])[3]')[0].text

#  2. Access it by list index
browser.find_elements_by_xpath('.//span[@class = "gbts"])')[2].text

edited Jan 29, 2013 at 19:48

answered Jan 29, 2013 at 19:23

root

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3 Comments

Silas Ray Over a year ago

Got to it first... yup, text is an attribute of a webelement object, not a method.

doremi Over a year ago

Cool. Other question, how do I grab only the 3rd span?

root Over a year ago

@doremi -- as browser.find_elements_by_xpath('.//span[@class = "gbts"]') returns a list you can just access it by index...

fenceop · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-20 20:46:12Z

21

YES ! Solution was found (I`am using Python) For instanc: webelement is a p tag

webelement.text()

from real situation, stacktrace:

print page_box_block.text() TypeError: 'unicode' object is not callable

it expect to be a html in stdout, but not !

sometimes could be a strange string "unicode object is not callable" or some type error solution is very easy:

print element.get_attribute("innerHTML")

In java get_attribute("innerHTML") and text() are about to "same", if you need plain text from element In Python 2.7 for now text() sometimes fails.

edited Jul 20, 2017 at 20:46

fenceop

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answered Jan 30, 2014 at 10:32

user3252247

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4 Comments

Atish Narlawar Over a year ago

In Python 2.7 for now text() sometimes fails. Thanks for your notice

Syed Mohd Mohsin Akhtar Over a year ago

In Python 2.7 for now text() sometimes fails. saved my life +1

Xatpy Over a year ago

Thanks for the .get_attribute("innerHTML"). It was what I was looking for!

datalifenyc Over a year ago

I ran into a situation where webelement.text was returning empty strings in a part of the page that contained a span element with no class name. However, element.get_attribute("innerHTML") worked well in those situations. Python 3.7 | Selenium 3.141.0

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