find and click element which has a changing CSS selector (python)

Question

I am writing a script which needs to click on an element of a page, however, the CSS selector changes everyday as the element changes it's location.

Today it's called:

PPTAmFCTable > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(11) > td:nth-child(3) > a:nth-child(1)

Yesterday it was:

PPTAmFCTable > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(10) > td:nth-child(3) > a:nth-child(1)

And tomorrow it might be tr:nth-child(13) or so.

I use the following code:

def click_element_bycss(browser,css,timeout):
    element_present = EC.presence_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR,css)) 
    WebDriverWait(browser, timeout).until(element_present)
    browser.find_element_by_css_selector(css).click()

and then:

click_element_bycss(browser,"#PPTAmFCTable > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(11) > td:nth-child(3) > a:nth-child(1)",4)

How can I write the code in a way that I click on the right element, w/o knowing the number in the second tr:nth-child() ?

Element HTML:

<a href="/FC1/ItemList;jsessionid=E6B3D538CD809FDDC3DE69EA160C956D?WorkPool=PickingNotYetPicked&amp;ExSDRange.RangeEndMillis=1556850660000&amp;ProcessPath=PPTAmFC&amp;ExSDRange.RangeStartMillis=1556850599999&amp;shipmentType=TRANSSHIPMENTS">261</a>

Thought of a loop which just runs through for i in range(1,20): tr:nth-child(i) but would expect there's something smarter.

You need to use relative locator instead of the absolute locator. You may need to find the element by text. Post the HTML of the table. — S A
– S A, Commented May 2, 2019 at 10:22

undetected Selenium · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-02 10:39:28Z

3

To find and click on the element as the element is a dynamic element you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

Using CSS_SELECTOR:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "#PPTAmFCTable>tbody a[href^='/FC1/ItemList'][href$='TRANSSHIPMENTS']"))).click()

Using XPATH:

WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//*[@id='PPTAmFCTable' and starts-with(@href,'/FC1/ItemList')][contains(@href, 'TRANSSHIPMENTS')]")))

Note : You have to add the following imports :

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC

answered May 2, 2019 at 10:39

undetected Selenium

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