Programmatically click button in C#

Question

I'm trying to programmatically click a series of buttons on an HTML web page which looks as follows:

<div class="srp-actions blue-button"><a class="primary-action-button label" href="/people/invite?from=profile&amp;key=243930744&amp;firstName=Will&amp;lastName=Yang&amp;authToken=p8Oz&amp;authType=OUT_OF_NETWORK&amp;connectionParam=member_desktop_search_people-vertical-module&amp;csrfToken=ajax%3A7824954558998584370&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_pri_act&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A12487701484818103943%2CVSRPtargetId%3A243930744%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary" data-li-result-interaction="instant-connect" data-li-success-text="Invite Sent" data-li-connect-href="/people/contacts-search-invite-submit?memIds=243930744&amp;authTokens=p8Oz&amp;authTypes=OUT_OF_NETWORK&amp;from=voltron&amp;firstName=Will&amp;lastName=Yang&amp;isAjax=true&amp;connectionParam=member_desktop_search_people-vertical-module&amp;csrfToken=ajax%3A7824954558998584370&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_invite_act&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A12487701484818103943%2CVSRPtargetId%3A243930744%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary">Connect</a><div class="secondary-actions-trigger"><button role="button" class="trigger"><span>Secondary Actions</span></button><ul class="menu"><li><a href="/requestList?displayProposal=&amp;destID=243930744&amp;creationType=DC&amp;authToken=p8Oz&amp;authType=OUT_OF_NETWORK&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_sec_act&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A12487701484818103943%2CVSRPtargetId%3A243930744%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary">Send InMail</a></li><li><a href="/forwardProfileMsg?displayCreate=&amp;profileID=0_0TL7XobJNwUxDDGHun9drH&amp;profileName=Will+Yang&amp;network=I&amp;trk=vsrp_people_res_sec_act&amp;trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A12487701484818103943%2CVSRPtargetId%3A243930744%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary">Share</a></li></ul></div></div>

Here's the current code to find the button element and perform the action:

HtmlElementCollection elements = webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a");

// First find and click "Connect" buttons
foreach (HtmlElement item in elements)
{
    if (item.OuterHtml.Contains("action-button label") && 
        !item.OuterHtml.Contains("Message") &&
        item.OuterHtml.Contains("OUT_OF_NETWORK"))
    {
        item.SetAttribute("href", item.GetAttribute("data-li-connect-href"));
        item.InvokeMember("Click");
    }
}

The code properly find the anchor element, but the InvokeMember method doesn't seem to yield any result, any idea what is wrong?

FreeKrishna · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-20 06:59:45Z

2

The tag you are using does not specify exactly which specific tag you need:

x = webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")

Instead try :

x= webBrowser1.Document.GetElementsById("anchor_id");
x.InvokeMember("click");

Or try using following method to verify whether its the intended tag you're using via attribute.

if (element.GetAttribute(attribute).Equals(attName))

edited Jan 20, 2017 at 6:59

answered Jan 19, 2017 at 9:43

FreeKrishna

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4 Comments

Loco Barocco Over a year ago

Actually, the actual "button" is the anchor <a> element, hence there is no button element to click - the button element in the html code above is just a side button which is out of scope of this question.

FreeKrishna Over a year ago

@LocoBarocco Updated the answer accordingly, Check it out.

Loco Barocco Over a year ago

I see your point, but in the html code above, the anchor element does not have any ID tag, so won't work...

Loco Barocco Over a year ago

No, it's not my code, it's retrieved from LinkedIn. I managed to trigger the proper click event now, which takes me to LinkedIn's "How do you know" page, but I want to trigger the "instant" invite event, which is placed inside the "data-li-connect-href" tag. I've tried to copy that tag to the regular href tag and trigger the click, but instead I'm redirected to my LinkedIn homepage. Also tried to use that tag info in a standalone http get request but result i the same. Any ideas?

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