Check for a stale element using selenium 2?

Question

Using selenium 2, is there a way to test if an element is stale?

Suppose I initiate a transition from one page to another (A -> B). I then select element X and test

Answer 1

In Ruby,

$default_implicit_wait_timeout = 10 #seconds

def element_stale?(element)
  stale = nil  # scope a boolean to return the staleness

  # set implicit wait to zero so the method does not slow your script
  $driver.manage.timeouts.implicit_wait = 0

  begin ## 'begin' is Ruby's try
    element.click
    stale = false
  rescue Selenium::WebDriver::Error::StaleElementReferenceError
    stale = true
  end

  # reset the implicit wait timeout to its previous value
  $driver.manage.timeouts.implicit_wait = $default_implicit_wait_timeout

  return stale
end

The code above is a Ruby translation of the stalenessOf method provided by ExpectedConditions. Similar code could be written in Python or any other language Selenium supports, and then called from a WebDriverWait block to wait until the element becomes stale.