How to gettext() of an element in Selenium Webdriver

Question

I am finding a textbox by its ID. I need to get the content which is already there inside the text box. For that I am using the gettext() method, but it is returning the ID value.

The content in the text box is: Santhosh

The output I am getting is = [[FirefoxDriver: firefox on XP (c0079327-7063-4908-b20a-a606b95830cb)] -> id: ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_txtName]

The code is below

Code

WebElement TxtBoxContent = driver.findElement(By.id(WebelementID));
TxtBoxContent.getText();
System.out.println("Printing " + TxtBoxContent);

Result

Printing [[FirefoxDriver: firefox on XP (c0079327-7063-4908-b20a-a606b95830cb)] -> id: ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_txtName]

Answer 1

You need to print the result of the getText(). You're currently printing the object TxtBoxContent.

getText() will only get the inner text of an element. To get the value, you need to use getAttribute().

WebElement TxtBoxContent = driver.findElement(By.id(WebelementID));
System.out.println("Printing " + TxtBoxContent.getAttribute("value"));

Answer 2

You need to store it in a String variable first before displaying it like so:

String Txt = TxtBoxContent.getText();
System.out.println(Txt);