Protractor expected condition for element containing any text

Question

Is there a way how to check whether an element has any text in it? I already found textToBePresentInElement but this function checks for specified value and does not return a proper error if it fails.

I'm population the element via API and it's loaded bit later, so I want the browser to wait till any information appears in the element and then check for correct value.

Alternatively it would be also very helpful to manage to get a specific error message when EC fails:

browser.wait(EC.textToBePresentInElement(element(by.binding('myvar')), "expected"), 5000);

Answer 1

The third argument to browser.wait() is a custom error message:

browser.wait(EC.textToBePresentInElement(element(by.binding('myvar')), "expected"), 5000, "Text is not something I've expected");

See also:

• Custom message on wait timeout error

---

To wait for an element to contain any text, you can write a custom expected condition:

var EC = protractor.ExpectedConditions;

var anyTextToBePresentInElement = function(elementFinder) {
  var hasText = function() {
    return elementFinder.getText().then(function(actualText) {
      return actualText;
    });
  };
  return EC.and(EC.presenceOf(elementFinder), hasText);
};

And here is the usage:

browser.wait(anyTextToBePresentInElement(element(by.binding('myvar'))), 5000);

Answer 2

The previous code snippet works form but with a small update: return actualText; should be boolean. So the whole code will be:

var anyTextToBePresentInElement = function(elementFinder) {
  var EC = protractor.ExpectedConditions;
  var hasText = function() {
    return elementFinder.getText().then(function(actualText) {
      return !!actualText;
    });
  };
  return EC.and(EC.presenceOf(elementFinder), hasText);
};

Usage example:

var el = element(by.binding('myvar'));
browser.wait(anyTextToBePresentInElement(el, 5000, 'Element still has no text');