CSS Locator with contains() InvalidSelectorException using Selenium WebDriver

Question

I am learning Selenium Webdriver and trying to write a simple test script.

The intent is to get the About Google link on

Answer 1

The main problem is at this line:

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("a:contains('About Google')"));

css doesn't maintain contains() for Selenium WD - See here.

For using contains() you have to use Xpath.

With Xpath your locator will be:

//a[contains(text(), 'About Google')]

and for driver it will be as:

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(text(), 'About Google')]"));

For finding links with Selenium you can use:

driver.findElement(By.linkText("your link name here"));

It is limitation of CSS selectors compare to Xpath:

• you can't take parent element with css selectors (Xpath has xpath axes)
• you can't use contains (it is only xpath privilege).

BTW
For processing Xpath locators from page you able to use extension for Firefox browser:

• FirePath

• Xpath Checker