Retrieving Text between <span>Text</span> in Selenium C#

Question

I am facing problem in retrieving Subject title of a mail from Unread mails using Selenium webdriver-C#.

Here's the HTML code :

<div class="ae4 UI UJ" gh="tl">
 <div class="Cp">
  <div>
    <table id=":8e" class="F cf zt" cellpadding="0">
    <colgroup>
    <tbody>
      <tr id=":8d" class="zA zE">
       <td class="PF xY"></td>
       <td id=":8c" class="oZ-x3 xY" style="">
       <td class="apU xY">
       <td class="WA xY">
       <td class="yX xY ">
       <td id=":87" class="xY " role="link" tabindex="0">
        <div class="xS">
         <div class="xT">
          <div id=":86" class="yi">
          <div class="y6">
          **<span id=":85">
             <b>hi</b>
            </span>**
            <span class="y2">
          </div>
         </div>
        </div>
       </td>
       <td class="yf xY "> </td>
       <td class="xW xY ">
     </tr>

I am able to print 'emailSenderName' in console but unable to print 'text' (subject line i.e. "hi" in this case) as it is between span tags. Here's my code.

 //Try to Retrieve mail Senders name and Subject
        IWebElement tbl_UM = d1.FindElement(By.ClassName("Cp")).FindElement(By.ClassName("F"));
        IList<IWebElement> tr_ListUM = tbl_UM.FindElements(By.ClassName("zE"));
        Console.WriteLine("NUMBER OF ROWS IN THIS TABLE = " + tr_ListUM.Count());
        foreach (IWebElement trElement in tr_ListUM)
        {
            IList<IWebElement> td_ListUM = trElement.FindElements(By.TagName("td"));
            Console.WriteLine("NUMBER OF COLUMNS=" + td_ListUM.Count());
            string emailSenderName = td_ListUM[4].FindElement(By.ClassName("yW")).FindElement(By.ClassName("zF")).GetAttribute("name");
            Console.WriteLine(emailSenderName);
            string text = td_ListUM[5].FindElement(By.ClassName("y6")).FindElement(By.TagName("span")).FindElement(By.TagName("b")).Text;
            Console.WriteLine(text);
        }

I had also tried by directly selecting the Text from tag of 5th Column (td), which contains the subject text (in my case), but no results.

I might went wrong somewhere or may be there is some other way of doing it.

Please suggest, Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

The 'getText' method available in the Java implementation of Selenium Web Driver seems to do a better job than the equivalent 'Text' property available in C#.

I found a way of achieving the same end which, although somewhat convoluted, works well:

public static string GetInnerHtml(this IWebElement element)
{
    var remoteWebDriver = (RemoteWebElement)element;
    var javaScriptExecutor = (IJavaScriptExecutor) remoteWebDriver.WrappedDriver;
    var innerHtml = javaScriptExecutor.ExecuteScript("return arguments[0].innerHTML;", element).ToString();

    return innerHtml;
}

It works by passing an IWebElement as a parameter to some JavaScript executing in the Browser, which treats it just like a normal DOM element. You can then access properties on it such as 'innerHTML'.

I've only tested this in Google Chrome but I see no reason why this shouldn't work in other browsers.