How do I send a DELETE keystroke to a text field using Selenium with Python?

Question

How do I send a Keys.DELETE keystroke to a text field with the Selenium web tester? I'm trying to simulate the user typing in a field and then deleting what they typed to test the interactive autosuggestion feature. It should filter the list to items beginning with their query, then show all the possible suggestions again when they delete their query. Unfortunatley sending a .clear() doesn't work to un-filter the list again. Neither does send_keys('\127').

def get_suggestions():
    driver.get('https://www.example.com/')
    driver.find_element_by_css_selector('#searchQuery').click()
    driver.find_element_by_css_selector('#searchQuery').send_keys('a')
    sleep(0.5)
    driver.find_element_by_css_selector('#searchQuery').send_keys(Keys.DELETE)
    sleep(0.5)
    for suggestion in driver.find_elements_by_css_selector('#search-form #suggestions'):
        yield suggestion

How can I simulate the user pressing the delete button on their keyboard?

Answer 1

You need to use Keys.BACKSPACE instead of Keys.DELETE if you want to delete a character before the cursor. Keys.DELETE is used to delete a character after the cursor.

Be sure you are using the following import:

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

Answer 2

You can use Ctr+a to highlight the text and remove it by BACKSPACE:

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

element.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'a')
element.send_keys(Keys.BACKSPACE)