How to handle colon (:) in the name when using Selenium in Python

Question

I am trying to search a number in a web page (https://muisca.dian.gov.co/WebRutMuisca/DefConsultaEstadoRUT.faces).

I know the name of the input element is: "vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit", however when I try to find the element I got this error:

"NoSuchElementException: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"css selector","selector":"[name="vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit"]"}
  (Session info: chrome=81.0.4044.138)"

This is what I have tried:

from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome("C:\\Users\\jcherrerab\\Anaconda3\\Lib\\site-packages\\selenium\\webdriver\\chrome\\chromedriver.exe")
driver.get("https://muisca.dian.gov.co/WebRutMuisca/DefConsultaEstadoRUT.faces")
driver.find_element_by_name("vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit").send_keys("860003020")

Can you help me pls?

Answer 1

The name attribute of the <input> element contains the : character as in:

vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit

And : bears a special effect when used within a css-selectors. Hence your program fails to find the desired element and raises NoSuchElementException

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Solution

To find the element you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using css_selector:

  driver.find_element_by_css_selector("input[name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']")
  

• Using xpath:

  driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']")
  

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Best practices

As you are invoking send_keys() ideally you need to induce WebDriverWait for the element_to_be_clickable() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using CSS_SELECTOR:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']"))).send_keys("860003020")
  

• Using XPATH:

  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.XPATH, "//input[@name='vistaConsultaEstadoRUT:formConsultaEstadoRUT:numNit']"))).send_keys("860003020")
  

• Note : You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  

• Browser Snapshot:

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Reference

You can find a couple of relevant discussions in:

• Selenium “selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException” when using Chrome
• selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element while trying to click Next button with selenium