How does one use Selenium::WebDriver::Element#click to select an option from a SELECT element?

Question

Using capybara 1.0.0 and selenium-webdriver 0.2.0 and in a test I have something like the following to select from a dropdown.

select 'Food & Dining', :from => 'category_id'

The test passes but I get the following complaint:

Selenium::WebDriver::Element#select is deprecated. Please use Selenium::WebDriver::Element#click ...

I've searched the web, the documents are sparse, anyone know how to use click to select an option of a select element?

Answer 1

From looking at the capybara-1.0.0 source:

# File 'lib/capybara/node/actions.rb', line 110
def select(value, options={})
  if options.has_key?(:from)
    no_select_msg = "cannot select option, no select box with id, name, or label '#{options[:from]}' found"
    no_option_msg = "cannot select option, no option with text '#{value}' in select box '#{options[:from]}'"
    select = find(:xpath, XPath::HTML.select(options[:from]), :message => no_select_msg)
    select.find(:xpath, XPath::HTML.option(value), :message => no_option_msg).select_option
  else
    no_option_msg = "cannot select option, no option with text '#{value}'"
    find(:xpath, XPath::HTML.option(value), :message => no_option_msg).select_option
  end
end

From looking at the selenium-webdriver 0.2.2 code, where the warning is being generated:

  # File 'rb/lib/selenium/webdriver/common/element.rb', line 175
  # Select this element
  #

  def select
    warn "#{self.class}#select is deprecated. Please use #{self.class}#click and determine the current state with #{self.class}#selected?"

    unless displayed?
      raise Error::ElementNotDisplayedError, "you may not select an element that is not displayed"
    end

    unless enabled?
      raise Error::InvalidElementStateError, "cannot select a disabled element"
    end

    unless selectable?
      raise Error::InvalidElementStateError, "you may only select options, radios or checkboxes"
    end

    click unless selected?
  end

so as a temporary solution to the annoying message and until capybara folks fix it on their end, I added this block of code to my cucumber features/support/env.rb file, you can also add it to your spec_helper.rb or to any testing framework file that gets loaded before running the test. Basically I am opening the class and overriding the method select and disabling the warning... just a temporary hack... not proud of it...

# June 30th, 2011
# a temporary hack to disable the annoying upstream warnings capybara > selenium-webdriver 0.2.2
# capybara folks know about this and are working on it. See:
# http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-capybara/browse_thread/thread/2cd042848332537a/7edb1699cb314862?show_docid=7edb1699cb314862
# Remove this whole block when Capybara 1.0.1 or greater are used
module Selenium
  module WebDriver
    class Element
      #
      # Select this element
      #

      def select
        #warn "#{self.class}#select is deprecated. Please use #{self.class}#click and determine the current state with #{self.class}#selected?"

        unless displayed?
          raise Error::ElementNotDisplayedError, "you may not select an element that is not displayed"
        end

        unless enabled?
          raise Error::InvalidElementStateError, "cannot select a disabled element"
        end

        unless selectable?
          raise Error::InvalidElementStateError, "you may only select options, radios or checkboxes"
        end

        click unless selected?
      end
    end
  end
end