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Locators

Locators are the central piece of Playwright's auto-waiting and retry-ability. In a nutshell, locators represent a way to find element(s) on the page at any moment.

Quick Guide​

These are the recommended built in locators.

page.get_by_label("User Name").fill("John")

page.get_by_label("Password").fill("secret-password")

page.get_by_role("button", name="Sign in").click()

expect(page.get_by_text("Welcome, John!")).to_be_visible()

Every time locator is used for some action, up-to-date DOM element is located in the page. So in the snippet below, underlying DOM element is going to be located twice, prior to every action. This means that if the DOM changes in between the calls due to re-render, the new element corresponding to the locator will be used.

locator = page.get_by_text("Submit")
locator.hover()
locator.click()

Strictness​

Locators are strict. This means that all operations on locators that imply some target DOM element will throw an exception if more than one element matches given selector. For example, the following call throws if there are several buttons in the DOM:

page.get_by_role("button").click()

On the other hand, Playwright understands when you perform a multiple-element operation, so the following call works perfectly fine when locator resolves to multiple elements.

page.get_by_role("button").count()

You can explicitly opt-out from strictness check by telling Playwright which element to use when multiple element match, through locator.first, locator.last, and locator.nth(index). These methods are not recommended because when your page changes, Playwright may click on an element you did not intend. Instead, follow best practices below to create a locator that uniquely identifies the target element.

Locating elements​

Playwright comes with multiple built-in ways to create a locator. To make tests resilient, we recommend prioritizing user-facing attributes and explicit contracts, and provide dedicated methods for them, such as page.get_by_text(text, **kwargs). It is often convenient to use the code generator to generate a locator, and then edit it as you'd like.

page.get_by_text("Log in").click()

If you absolutely must use CSS or XPath locators, you can use page.locator(selector, **kwargs) to create a locator that takes a selector describing how to find an element in the page.

Note that all methods that create a locator, such as page.get_by_label(text, **kwargs), are also available on the Locator and FrameLocator classes, so you can chain them and iteratively narrow down your locator.

locator = page.frame_locator("my-frame").get_by_text("Submit")
locator.click()

Locate based on accessible attributes​

The page.get_by_role(role, **kwargs) locator reflects how users and assistive technology perceive the page, for example whether some element is a button or a checkbox. When locating by role, you should usually pass the accessible name as well, so that locator pinpoints the exact element.

page.get_by_role("button", name=re.compile("submit", re.IGNORECASE)).click()

page.get_by_role("checkbox", checked=True, name="Check me").check()

Role locators follow W3C specifications for ARIA role, ARIA attributes and accessible name.

Note that role locators do not replace accessibility audits and conformance tests, but rather give early feedback about the ARIA guidelines.

Locate by label text​

Most form controls usually have dedicated labels that could be conveniently used to interact with the form. In this case, you can locate the control by its associated label using page.get_by_label(text, **kwargs).

For example, consider the following DOM structure.

<label for="password">Password:</label><input type="password" id="password">

You can fill the input after locating it by the label text:

page.get_by_label("Password").fill("secret")

Locate by placeholder text​

Inputs may have a placeholder attribute to hint to the user what value should be entered. You can locate such an input using page.get_by_placeholder(text, **kwargs).

For example, consider the following DOM structure.

 <input id="email" name="email" type="email" placeholder="name@example.com">

You can fill the input after locating it by the placeholder text:

page.get_by_placeholder("name@example.com").fill("playwright@microsoft.com")

Locate by text​

The easiest way to find an element is to look for the text it contains. You can match by a substring, exact string, or a regular expression when using page.get_by_text(text, **kwargs).

page.get_by_text("Log in").click()
page.get_by_text("Log in", exact=True).click()
page.get_by_text(re.compile("Log in", re.IGNORECASE)).click()

You can also filter by text when locating in some other way, for example find a particular item in the list.

page.get_by_test_id("product-item").filter(has_text="Playwright Book").click()
note

Matching by text always normalizes whitespace, even with exact match. For example, it turns multiple spaces into one, turns line breaks into spaces and ignores leading and trailing whitespace.

Locate by alt text​

All images should have an alt attribute that describes the image. You can locate an image based on the text alternative using page.get_by_alt_text(text, **kwargs).

For example, consider the following DOM structure.

<img alt="playwright logo" src="/playwright-logo.png" />

You can click on the image after locating it by the text alternative:

page.get_by_alt_text("playwright logo").click()

Locate by title​

Locate an element with a matching title attribute using page.get_by_title(text, **kwargs).

For example, consider the following DOM structure.

<span title='Issues count'>25 issues</span>

You can check the issues count after locating it by the title text:

expect(page.get_by_title("Issues count")).to_have_text("25 issues")

Define explicit contract and use a data-testid attribute​

User-facing attributes like text or accessible name can change over time. In this case it is convenient to define explicit test ids and query them with page.get_by_test_id(test_id).

<button data-testid="directions">Itinéraire</button>
page.get_by_test_id("directions").click()

By default, page.get_by_test_id(test_id) will locate elements based on the data-testid attribute, but you can configure it in your test config or calling selectors.set_test_id_attribute(attribute_name).

Locate in a subtree​

You can chain methods that create a locator, like page.get_by_text(text, **kwargs) or locator.get_by_role(role, **kwargs), to narrow down the search to a particular part of the page.

For example, consider the following DOM structure:

<div data-testid='product-card'>
  <span>Product 1</span>
  <button>Buy</button>
</div>
<div data-testid='product-card'>
  <span>Product 2</span>
  <button>Buy</button>
</div>

For example, we can first find a product card that contains text "Product 2", and then click the button in this specific product card.

product = page.get_by_test_id("product-card").filter(has_text="Product 2")

product.get_by_text("Buy").click()

Locate by CSS or XPath selector​

Playwright supports CSS and XPath selectors, and auto-detects them if you omit css= or xpath= prefix. Use page.locator(selector, **kwargs) for this:

page.locator("css=button").click()
page.locator("xpath=//button").click()

page.locator("button").click()
page.locator("//button").click()

XPath and CSS selectors can be tied to the DOM structure or implementation. These selectors can break when the DOM structure changes. Long CSS or XPath chains below are an example of a bad practice that leads to unstable tests:

page.locator("#tsf > div:nth-child(2) > div.A8SBwf > div.RNNXgb > div > div.a4bIc > input").click()

page.locator("//*[@id="tsf"]/div[2]/div[1]/div[1]/div/div[2]/input").click()

Instead, try to come up with a locator that is close to how user perceives the page or define an explicit testing contract.

Locate elements that contain other elements​

Filter by text​

Locator can be optionally filtered by text. It will search for a particular string somewhere inside the element, possibly in a descendant element, case-insensitively. You can also pass a regular expression.

page.get_by_test_id("product-card").filter(has_text="Product 3").click()
page.get_by_test_id("product-card").filter(has_text=re.compile("Product 3")).click()

Filter by another locator​

Locators support an option to only select elements that have a descendant matching another locator.

page.get_by_role("section").filter(has=page.get_by_test_id("subscribe-button"))

Note that inner locator is matched starting from the outer one, not from the document root.

Augment an existing locator​

You can filter an existing locator by text or another one, using locator.filter(**kwargs) method, possibly chaining it multiple times.

row_locator = page.locator("tr")
# ...
row_locator
    .filter(has_text="text in column 1")
    .filter(has=page.get_by_role("button", name="column 2 button"))
    .screenshot()

Locate elements in Shadow DOM​

All locators in Playwright by default work with elements in Shadow DOM. The exceptions are:

Consider the following example with a custom web component:

<x-details role=button aria-expanded=true aria-controls=inner-details>
  <div>Title</div>
  #shadow-root
    <div id=inner-details>Details</div>
</x-details>

You can locate in the same way as if the shadow root was not present at all.

  • Click <div>Details</div>

    page.get_by_text("Details").click()

  • Click <x-details>

    page.locator("x-details", has_text="Details" ).click()

  • Ensure that <x-details> contains text "Details"

    expect(page.locator("x-details")).to_contain_text("Details")

Lists​

You can also use locators to work with the element lists.

# Locate elements, this locator points to a list.
rows = page.get_by_role("listitem")

# Pattern 1: use locator methods to calculate text on the whole list.
texts = rows.all_text_contents()

# Pattern 2: do something with each element in the list.
count = rows.count()
for i in range(count):
  print(rows.nth(i).text_content())

# Pattern 3: resolve locator to elements on page and map them to their text content.
# Note: the code inside evaluateAll runs in page, you can call any DOM apis there.
texts = rows.evaluate_all("list => list.map(element => element.textContent)")

Picking specific element from a list​

If you have a list of identical elements, and the only way to distinguish between them is the order, you can choose a specific element from a list with locator.first, locator.last or locator.nth(index).

For example, to click the third item in the list of products:

page.get_by_test_id("product-card").nth(3).click()

However, use these methods with caution. Often times, the page might change, and locator will point to a completely different element from the one you expected. Instead, try to come up with a unique locator that will pass the strictness criteria.