Python Selenium wait for several elements to load

Question

I have a list, which is dynamically loaded by AJAX. At first, while loading, it's code is like this:

<ul><li class="last"><a class="loading" href="#"><ins>&nbsp;</ins>Загрузка...</a></li></ul>

When the list is loaded, all of it li and a are changed. And it's always more than 1 li. Like this:

<ul class="ltr">
<li id="t_b_68" class="closed" rel="simple">
<a id="t_a_68" href="javascript:void(0)">Category 1</a>
</li>
<li id="t_b_64" class="closed" rel="simple">
<a id="t_a_64" href="javascript:void(0)">Category 2</a>
</li>
...

I need to check if list is loaded, so I check if it has several li.

So far I tried:

1) Custom waiting condition

class more_than_one(object):
    def __init__(self, selector):
        self.selector = selector

    def __call__(self, driver):
        elements = driver.find_elements_by_css_selector(self.selector)
        if len(elements) > 1:
            return True
        return False

...

try:
        query = WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(more_than_one('li'))
    except:
        print "Bad crap"
    else:
        # Then load ready list

2) Custom function based on find_elements_by

def wait_for_several_elements(driver, selector, min_amount, limit=60):
    """
    This function provides awaiting of <min_amount> of elements found by <selector> with
    time limit = <limit>
    """
    step = 1   # in seconds; sleep for 500ms
    current_wait = 0
    while current_wait < limit:
        try:
            print "Waiting... " + str(current_wait)
            query = driver.find_elements_by_css_selector(selector)
            if len(query) > min_amount:
                print "Found!"
                return True
            else:
                time.sleep(step)
                current_wait += step
        except:
            time.sleep(step)
            current_wait += step

    return False

This doesn't work, because driver (current element passed to this function) gets lost in DOM. UL isn't changed but Selenium can't find it anymore for some reason.

3) Excplicit wait. This just sucks, because some lists are loaded instantly and some take 10+ secs to load. If I use this technique I have to wait max time every occurence, which is very bad for my case.

4) Also I can't wait for child element with XPATH correctly. This one just expects ul to appear.

try:
    print "Going to nested list..."
    #time.sleep(WAIT_TIME)
    query = WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.XPATH, './/ul')))
    nested_list = child.find_element_by_css_selector('ul')

Please, tell me the right way to be sure, that several heir elements are loaded for specified element.

P.S. All this checks and searches should be relative to current element.

Answer 1

First and foremost the elements are AJAX elements.

Now, as per the requirement to locate all the desired elements and create a list, the simplest approach would be to induce WebDriverWait for the visibility_of_all_elements_located() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using CSS_SELECTOR:

  elements = WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_all_elements_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "ul.ltr li[id^='t_b_'] > a[id^='t_a_'][href]")))
  

• Using XPATH:

  elements = WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_all_elements_located((By.XPATH, "//ul[@class='ltr']//li[starts-with(@id, 't_b_')]/a[starts-with(@id, 't_a_') and starts-with(., 'Category')]")))
  

• 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
  

---

Incase your usecase is to wait for certain number of elements to be loaded e.g. 10 elements, you can use you can use the lambda function as follows:

• Using >:

  myLength = 9
  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(lambda driver: len(driver.find_elements_by_xpath("//ul[@class='ltr']//li[starts-with(@id, 't_b_')]/a[starts-with(@id, 't_a_') and starts-with(., 'Category')]")) > int(myLength))
  

• Using ==:

  myLength = 10
  WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(lambda driver: len(driver.find_elements_by_xpath("//ul[@class='ltr']//li[starts-with(@id, 't_b_')]/a[starts-with(@id, 't_a_') and starts-with(., 'Category')]")) == int(myLength))
  

You can find a relevant discussion in How to wait for number of elements to be loaded using Selenium and Python

---

References

You can find a couple of relevant detailed discussions in:

• Getting specific elements in selenium
• Cannot find table element from div element in selenium python
• Extract text from an aria-label selenium webdriver (python)