How to fetch all links and click those links one by one using Selenium WebDriver

Question

I am using Selenium WebDriver with java.

I am fetching all links from webpage and trying to click each link one by one. I am getting below error:

Answer 1

If you're OK using WebDriver.get() instead of WebElement.click() to test the links, an alternate approach is to save the href value of each found WebElement in a separate list. This way you avoid the StaleElementReferenceException because you're not trying to reuse subsequent WebElements after navigating away with the first WebElement.click().

Basic example:

List<String> hrefs = new ArrayList<String>();
List<WebElement> anchors = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));
for ( WebElement anchor : anchors ) {
    hrefs.add(anchor.getAttribute("href"));
}
for ( String href : hrefs ) {
    driver.get(href);           
}

Answer 2

    WebDriver _driver = new InternetExplorerDriver();
    _driver.navigate().to("http://www.google.co.in/");
    List <WebElement> alllinks = _driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));

    for(int i=0;i<alllinks.size();i++)
        System.out.println(alllinks.get(i).getText());

    for(int i=0;i<alllinks.size();i++){
        alllinks.get(i).click();
        _driver.navigate().back();
    }

Answer 3

Credit goes to "loan".

I am also getting "stale exception" so I used 'loan' answer and works perfectly. Just if anyone need to know how to click on each link from results page try this (java)

clickAllHyperLinksByTagName("h3"); where "h3" tag contains hyperlink

 public static void clickAllHyperLinksByTagName(String tagName){
    int numberOfElementsFound = getNumberOfElementsFound(By.tagName(tagName));
    System.out.println(numberOfElementsFound);
    for (int pos = 0; pos < numberOfElementsFound; pos++) {
        getElementWithIndex(By.tagName(tagName), pos).click();
        driver.navigate().back();
    }
}

public static int getNumberOfElementsFound(By by) {
    return driver.findElements(by).size();
}

public static WebElement getElementWithIndex(By by, int pos) {
    return driver.findElements(by).get(pos);
}

Answer 4

List <WebElement> links = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));                 
int linkCount=links.size();

System.out.println("Total number of page on the webpage:"+ linkCount);
String[] texts=new String[linkCount];
int t=0;
for (WebElement text:links){
  texts[t]=text.getText();//extract text from link and put in Array
  //System.out.println(texts[t]);
  t++;
}
for (String clicks:texts) {

  driver.findElement(By.linkText(clicks)).click();
  if (driver.getTitle().equals("notWorkingUrlTitle" )) {
    System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
    + " is not working.");
  } else {
    System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
                       + " is working.");
  }

  driver.navigate().back();
}

driver.quit();

Answer 5

There is no such a good idea to have following scenario :

for (WebElement element : webDriver.findElements(locator.getBy())){
  element.click();
}

Why? Because there is no guarantee that the element.click(); will have no effect on other found elements, so the DOM may be changed, so hence the StaleElementReferenceException.

It is better to use the following scenario :

int numberOfElementsFound = getNumberOfElementsFound(locator);
for (int pos = 0; pos < numberOfElementsFound; pos++) {
  getElementWithIndex(locator, pos).click();
}

This is better because you will always take the WebElement refreshed, even the previous click had some effects on it.

EDIT : Example added

  public int getNumberOfElementsFound(By by) {
    return webDriver.findElements(by).size();
  }

  public WebElement getElementWithIndex(By by, int pos) {
    return webDriver.findElements(by).get(pos);
  }

Hope to be enough.

Answer 6

//extract the link texts of each link element
        for (WebElement elements : linkElements) {
            linkTexts[i] = elements.getText();
            i++;
        }

        //test each link
        for (String t : linkTexts) {
            driver.findElement(By.linkText(t)).click();
            if (driver.getTitle().equals(notWorkingUrlTitle )) {
                System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
                        + " is not working.");
            } else {
                System.out.println("\"" + t + "\""
                        + " is working.");
            }
            driver.navigate().back();
        }
        driver.quit();
    }

For complete Explanation Read This POST