Find Elements With Link Text & Partial Link Text In Selenium

Using Partial Link Text In Selenium To Locate An Element

Partial link text in Selenium is another way of locating an element via a link. The only difference from the link text in Selenium to partial link text is that it does not look into the exact match of the string value but work on a partial match. So, in case you are looking for a link with a bigger text length, you can get away from using only the partial link text rather than the whole link text in Selenium.

Syntax of locating element by partial link text.

driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText ("link text"));

Referencing the above scenario, below is the code snippet for partial link text of the same stay of Airbnb:

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.testng.Assert;

public class PartialLinkText {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    
    System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", ".\ChromeDriver\chromedriver.exe");
    WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(20, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    
    driver.manage().window().maximize();
    
    //Opening the air bnb Goa homestays page
    driver.get("https://www.airbnb.co.in/s/Goa/all");
    
    //locating an element via link text now and clicking on that stay
    driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText("Pool & Jacuzzi")).click();

             driver.quit();
  }

}

How To Select The Right Link Text When You Have Multiple Match Results?

The only thing to remember and to be cautious of while using partial link text in Selenium is when partial link text ends up matching with multiple link text on the page. In this case, make sure, you are clicking on the desired one.

Let’s consider another scenario as we perform automation testing with Selenium, where you end up matching multiple link text and wish to target only the designated one. For the same homestays of Goa, I am trying to locate the element with partial text as ‘pool’ in it. So, the strategy would be to find out home many stays have a pool in them and click on the required stay, post that. The reference code snippet below represents how we can pick the right target out of multiple match results using the partial link text in Selenium.

import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.testng.Assert;

public class LinkText {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    
    System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", ".\ChromeDriver\chromedriver.exe");
    WebDriver driver=new ChromeDriver();
    driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(20, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    
    driver.manage().window().maximize();
    
    //Opening the air bnb Goa homestays page
    driver.get("https://www.airbnb.co.in/s/Goa/all");
    
    //locating an element via link text now and clicking on that stay
    List<WebElement> poolNumber=driver.findElements(By.partialLinkText("Pool"));
    
    //find the number of links with the text as pool
    int numberOfStaysWithPool= poolNumber.size();
    
    System.out.println(numberOfStaysWithPool);
    
    for(int k=0; k<numberOfStaysWithPool; k++)
    {
      //printing all those links
      System.out.println(poolNumber.get(k).getText());
      
    }
    
    //select the luxury three bedroom apartment link
    poolNumber.get(2).click();

             driver.quit();
  }

}

In the above code snippet, I have used findElements since I am supposed to receive multiple web elements with partial text as ‘pool’. Now, using an index, I have navigated to one of the links, which I wish to click. Simple, isn’t it?

Note: Both, link text & partial link text are cases sensitive as CSS locator in Selenium.

For example, Assume that a link ‘Register’ is present on a home page and a similar link ‘REGISTER’ is present on the footer of the homepage. In this case, if you are locating with link text ‘REGISTER’, it will automatically select the link in the footer and not the other one.

Link text and partial link text locator in Selenium works only on links of a given web application. If you intend to locate elements other than links you cannot use link text or partial link text locator in Selenium. If you are dealing with links in your application, then this is perhaps the best locator to go with. Happy testing! 🙂