how to exactly match using :class selector in watir-webdriver

Question

Regarding the backwards-incompatible change of Watir 0.5.x Finding elements by :class now matches partial class attributes.

How do I get the old behavior? I.e. to match exact class name.

It is breaking my code, in one case:

# expand all multiple records
 while  $browser.div(:class => "expander").exists?  
  $browser.div(:class => "expander").click
 end

because once .clicked, the div's class becomes "expander hasChildren" (and possibly other classes, depending on table row's color and content). Is there a better way to write that code that expands all rows that are still collapsed?

Answer 1

To match the exact class name, you could use a regex with starting and ending anchors:

$browser.div(:class => /^expander$/).exists?

This would match exactly "expander" but not "expander hasChildren" or "something expander".

For your other question regarding if there is a better way to expand all rows, I think it really depends on what the HTML for the page looks like. Do you have an example? When I had a similar problem with a similar control, I was able to use the structure of the divs around the clickable ones to make the search more specific.