How to get the hidden element value in capybara?

Question

I need to get the value of a hidden element.

I tried the following code:

page.find(:xpath, "//span[@id='sample']").text

it returns nil.

Answer 1

You can simply find the hidden element and get it's value.

find('#sample', visible: false).value

So simple ;)

Answer 2

From Capybara 2.1 you can pass :all to text and use find('#sample').text(:all) regardless of driver.

Also you can use :text option of matchers (they will internally pass :all to text if :visible is false):

page.should have_css('#sample', visible: false, text: 'expected text')

---

In older Capybara 2.0.x text didn't have such option and returned only visible text.

To return both visible and not visible text you can use in:

• selenium:

page.evaluate_script("document.getElementById('sample').textContent")

• rack_test:

find('#sample').native.text