How to read text from hidden element with Selenium WebDriver?

Question

I'm trying to read the example String 1000 out of a hidden <div> like this:

<div id="hidden_div" style="visibility:hidden">1000</div>

I am aware that WebElement.getText() does not work on hidden elements in Selenium 2 (WebDriver), so I searched for solutions (like this one) and apparently the following code should work:

WebElement hiddenDiv = seleniumDriver.findElement(By.id("hidden_div"));
String n = hiddenDiv.getText(); // does not work (returns "" as expected)
String script = "return arguments[0].innerText";
n = (String) ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(script, hiddenDiv);

But it doesn't work for me, the variable n always ends up as null. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Might be useful as well:

In some cases, one may find it useful to get the hidden text, which can be retrieved from element's textContent, innerText or innerHTML attribute, by calling element.attribute('attributeName').

element.getAttribute("textContent") worked for me.

See more details there -> http://yizeng.me/2014/04/08/get-text-from-hidden-elements-using-selenium-webdriver/

Answer 2

EDIT: Oh this works.

String script = "return document.getElementById('hidden_div').innerHTML";

In firefox.

And so does this.

String script = "return arguments[0].innerHTML";

I tried as well but it does not seem to work with pure Javascript. Start the browser with Jquery as mentioned here. How to use JQuery in Selenium? and use following code for script.

String script = "return $('#hidden_div').text();";

This works.

Answer 3

Building upon the work of the already given answers, I created this utility method (Java). Maybe this is helpful for someone else.

public static String getText(WebDriver driver, WebElement element){
    return (String) ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
        "return jQuery(arguments[0]).text();", element);
}

• I use jQuery's text() to extract text nodes only. innerHTML would give you HTML tags as well.
• I use jQuery instead of $ in case of noConflict
• don't manipulate the element or it's visibility

Answer 4

Try this

        WebElement hiddenElement  = GET YOUR ELEMENT HERE;
        String hiddenContent= hiddenElement.getAttribute("textContent");