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

Question

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)");
  }
}

Answer 1

Not Sure which version of selenium you are referring to, however some commands in selenium * can now do this: http://release.seleniumhq.org/selenium-core/0.8.0/reference.html

• assertNotSomethingSelected
• assertTextNotPresent

Etc..

Answer 2

It's easier to do this:

driver.findElements(By.linkText("myLinkText")).size() < 1

Answer 3

I think that you can just catch org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException that will be thrown by driver.findElement if there's no such element:

import org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException;

....

public static void assertLinkNotPresent(WebDriver driver, String text) {
    try {
        driver.findElement(By.linkText(text));
        fail("Link with text <" + text + "> is present");
    } catch (NoSuchElementException ex) { 
        /* do nothing, link is not present, assert is passed */ 
    }
}

Answer 4

There is an Class called ExpectedConditions:

  By loc = ...
  Boolean notPresent = ExpectedConditions.not(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(loc)).apply(getDriver());
  Assert.assertTrue(notPresent);

Answer 5

With Selenium Webdriver would be something like this:

assertTrue(!isElementPresent(By.linkText("Empresas en Misión")));

Answer 6

Try this -

private boolean verifyElementAbsent(String locator) throws Exception {
    try {
        driver.findElement(By.xpath(locator));
        System.out.println("Element Present");
        return false;

    } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
        System.out.println("Element absent");
        return true;
    }
}

Answer 7

boolean titleTextfield = driver.findElement(By.id("widget_polarisCommunityInput_113_title")).isDisplayed();
assertFalse(titleTextfield, "Title text field present which is not expected");

Answer 8

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...

Answer 9

You can utlilize Arquillian Graphene framework for this. So example for your case could be

Graphene.element(By.linkText(text)).isPresent().apply(driver));

Is also provides you bunch of nice API's for working with Ajax, fluent waits, page objects, fragments and so on. It definitely eases a Selenium based test development a lot.

Answer 10

For node.js I've found the following to be effective way to wait for an element to no longer be present:

// variable to hold loop limit
    var limit = 5;
// variable to hold the loop count
    var tries = 0;
        var retry = driver.findElements(By.xpath(selector));
            while(retry.size > 0 && tries < limit){
                driver.sleep(timeout / 10)
                tries++;
                retry = driver.findElements(By.xpath(selector))
            }

Answer 11

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

Answer 12

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

Answer 13

findElement will check the html source and will return true even if the element is not displayed. To check whether an element is displayed or not use -

private boolean verifyElementAbsent(String locator) throws Exception {

        boolean visible = driver.findElement(By.xpath(locator)).isDisplayed();
        boolean result = !visible;
        System.out.println(result);
        return result;
}

Answer 14

For appium 1.6.0 and above

    WebElement button = (new WebDriverWait(driver, 10).until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.xpath("//XCUIElementTypeButton[@name='your button']"))));
    button.click();

    Assert.assertTrue(!button.isDisplayed());