[FIXED] webelement selenium - how to found an element with xpath and link with onclick

Issue

I try to get element like this :

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(@onclick="submitData('updateShortcodeAdmin','')")]"));

or like this :

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(@onclick=\"submitData(\'updateShortcodeAdmin\',\'\');")]\"));

or like this :

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(@onclick=\"submitData(\'updateShortcodeAdmin\',\'\')\")]"));

and got the same Error :

org.openqa.selenium.InvalidSelectorException: invalid selector: Unable to locate an element with the xpath expression //a[contains(@onclick="submitData('updateShortcodeAdmin','')")] because of the following error:
SyntaxError: Failed to execute 'evaluate' on 'Document': The string '//a[contains(@onclick="submitData('updateShortcodeAdmin','')")]' is not a valid XPath expression.

What am I writing wrong?

Thanks !

Solution

Please use the below xpath :

//a[contains(@onclick,'submitData('updateShortcodeAdmin')')]

Explanation :

You are using = in contains method, it should have been ,

I checked in compiler that

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(@onclick,'submitData('updateShortcodeAdmin')')]"));

does not show any compile error.

PS : Please check in the dev tools (Google chrome) if we have unique entry in HTML DOM or not.

Steps to check:

Press F12 in Chrome -> go to element section -> do a CTRL + F -> then paste the xpath and see, if your desired element is getting highlighted with 1/1 matching node.

Update :

webDriver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[contains(@onclick,'updateShortcodeAdmin')]"));

Answered By - cruisepandey