🧭 Complete Guide to Selenium Locators & Element Finding Strategies

 In Selenium, locating strategies are techniques used to identify web elements on a page so that actions (like click, type, etc.) can be performed on them. Selenium provides multiple locators to interact with HTML elements.

Below is a complete list of Selenium locators, with details, HTML examples, and code snippets for each.

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🔍 1. ID

✅ Best when the element has a unique ID.

🔧 HTML:

<input id="username" type="text">

🧪 Selenium (Java):

driver.findElement(By.id("username")).sendKeys("testuser");

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🔍 2. Name

✅ Useful when the element has a unique name attribute.

🔧 HTML:

<input name="password" type="password">

🧪 Selenium:

driver.findElement(By.name("password")).sendKeys("mypassword");

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🔍 3. Class Name

⚠️ Use only when class is unique or combined with other locators.

🔧 HTML:

<button class="login-button">Login</button>

🧪 Selenium:

driver.findElement(By.className("login-button")).click();

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🔍 4. Tag Name

✅ Used when selecting elements like all <a>, <div>, etc.

🔧 HTML:

<a href="/home">Home</a>
<a href="/about">About</a>

🧪 Selenium:

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

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🔍 5. Link Text

✅ Exact match for anchor link text.

🔧 HTML:

<a href="/login">Login here</a>

🧪 Selenium:

driver.findElement(By.linkText("Login here")).click();

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🔍 6. Partial Link Text

✅ Match part of the link text.

🔧 HTML:

<a href="/login">Login to your account</a>

🧪 Selenium:

driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText("Login")).click();

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🔍 7. CSS Selector

✅ Powerful, fast, and flexible. Supports ID, class, attributes, child, sibling, etc.

🔧 HTML:

<input type="text" id="user" class="form-input" name="username">

🧪 Selenium (Examples):

// By ID
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#user"));

// By class
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(".form-input"));

// By attribute
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[name='username']"));

// By tag and class
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input.form-input"));

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🔍 8. XPath

✅ Most flexible and powerful. Supports relative/absolute paths, axes, and conditions.

🔧 HTML:

<input type="text" name="email" id="emailField">

🧪 Selenium (Examples):

// Absolute XPath (not recommended for dynamic pages)
driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/div/input"));

// Relative XPath (recommended)
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@id='emailField']"));

// Multiple conditions
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@type='text' and @name='email']"));

// Text-based
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//button[text()='Submit']"));

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🔍 Summary Table

Locator Strategy	Method	When to Use
ID	By.id()	Best for unique elements
Name	By.name()	Good if name is unique
Class Name	By.className()	Use if class is unique or combined with others
Tag Name	By.tagName()	Use for lists or bulk element handling
Link Text	By.linkText()	Exact match of link text
Partial Link Text	By.partialLinkText()	Partial match of link text
CSS Selector	By.cssSelector()	Preferred for speed and flexibility
XPath	By.xpath()	Powerful; ideal for complex or dynamic elements

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