[FIXED] How to execute except code block faster in this case if elements is not found using Python/Selenium?

Issue

I have this code below to get comments from a page. Sometimes there are no comments, hence the except code triggers. It tries the try code block for like 5-10 seconds before executing the except code. Is there any faster way to check if the elements is found or not? Preferably: If the elements is not found then execute the except code directly.

try: 
        comments = WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(
            EC.presence_of_all_elements_located((By.XPATH, relativeXpathToReportComments)))
        # some code to be executed if the elements is found

except:
        print("could not find/get comments on comment page")

Solution

In case you want to check elements existence immediately you can simply use something like this:

if driver.find_elements_by_xpath('relativeXpathToReportComments'):
    # some code to be executed if the elements is found
else:
    print("could not find/get comments on comment page")

driver.find_elements returns a list of elements matching the passed locator.
In case there are such elements it returns non-empty list of found elements. Otherwise it returns an empty list recognized as False in Python.
find_elements and find_element are looking to find elements up to the timeout defined by ImplicitWait which is 0 by default.

Answered By - Prophet