Assert that a WebElement is not present using Selenium WebDriver with java

user_391795 0
Viewed 127480

In tests that I write, if I want to assert a WebElement is present on the page, I can do a simple:

driver.findElement(By.linkText("Test Search"));

This will pass if it exists and it will bomb out if it does not exist. But now I want to assert that a link does not exist. I am unclear how to do this since the code above does not return a boolean.

EDIT This is how I came up with my own fix, I'm wondering if there's a better way out there still.

public static void assertLinkNotPresent (WebDriver driver, String text) throws Exception {
List<WebElement> bob = driver.findElements(By.linkText(text));
  if (bob.isEmpty() == false) {
    throw new Exception (text + " (Link is present)");
  }
}
selenium-webdriver assertion java
17 Answers

It looks like findElements() only returns quickly if it finds at least one element. Otherwise it waits for the implicit wait timeout, before returning zero elements - just like findElement().

To keep the speed of the test good, this example temporarily shortens the implicit wait, while waiting for the element to disappear:

static final int TIMEOUT = 10;

public void checkGone(String id) {
    FluentWait<WebDriver> wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TIMEOUT)
            .ignoring(StaleElementReferenceException.class);

    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    try {
        wait.until(ExpectedConditions.numberOfElementsToBe(By.id(id), 0));
    } finally {
        resetTimeout();
    }
}

void resetTimeout() {
    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(TIMEOUT, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}

Still looking for a way to avoid the timeout completely though...

user_17944850

Not an answer to the very question but perhaps an idea for the underlying task:

When your site logic should not show a certain element, you could insert an invisible "flag" element that you check for.

if condition
    renderElement()
else
    renderElementNotShownFlag() // used by Selenium test
user_1975740

Please find below example using Selenium "until.stalenessOf" and Jasmine assertion. It returns true when element is no longer attached to the DOM.

const { Builder, By, Key, until } = require('selenium-webdriver');

it('should not find element', async () => {
   const waitTime = 10000;
   const el = await driver.wait( until.elementLocated(By.css('#my-id')), waitTime);
   const isRemoved = await driver.wait(until.stalenessOf(el), waitTime);

   expect(isRemoved).toBe(true);
});

For ref.: Selenium:Until Doc

user_84947620

The way that I have found best - and also to show in Allure report as fail - is to try-catch the findelement and in the catch block, set the assertTrue to false, like this:

    try {
        element = driver.findElement(By.linkText("Test Search"));
    }catch(Exception e) {
        assertTrue(false, "Test Search link was not displayed");
    }
user_85938510

This is the best approach for me

public boolean isElementVisible(WebElement element) {
    try { return element.isDisplayed(); } catch (Exception ignored) { return false; }
}
user_79028360

For a JavaScript (with TypeScript support) implementation I came up with something, not very pretty, that works:

  async elementNotExistsByCss(cssSelector: string, timeout=100) {
    try {
      // Assume that at this time the element should be on page
      await this.getFieldByCss(cssSelector, timeout);
      // Throw custom error if element s found
      throw new Error("Element found");
    } catch (e) {
      // If element is not found then we silently catch the error
      if (!(e instanceof TimeoutError)) {
        throw e;
      }
      // If other errors appear from Selenium it will be thrown
    }
  }

P.S: I am using "selenium-webdriver": "^4.1.1"

user_4765430
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