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azakharov's avatar
azakharov
Contributor
11 years ago
Solved

Waiting for XPath or CSS elements

Hi,



What is the best strategy for waiting XPath and CSS elements to be displayed on a page?



They are AJAX generated so I can't rely on page.Wait().



I need to achieve the following (JScript):



var element = page.QuerySelector("input[name='Name']");

// pseudo code: element - wait for element to be loaded and displayed on a page;

element.SetText('Text");



I don't want to use hardcoded "aqUtils.Delay(5000);" since it's not good and reliable practice.



Thanks a lot!
  • rgratis's avatar
    rgratis
    11 years ago

    I usually do a code loop until the object is found or until some sort of safety timeout period is exceeded.  I write in VBScript, but hopefully, you can see the intention and create something similar to suit your needs.




     



     'We'll wait for ten seconds


    curTime = aqDateTime.Now


    endTime = aqDateTime.AddSeconds(curTime, 10)




    'Start loop


    Do  



    'Optional delay to space out the attempts to find the element


    aqUtils.Delay 250



    ' QuerySelector will return object or Nothing/null

    Set elementOb = Page.QuerySelector("whatever")

     


    Loop Until Not elementOb Is Nothing Or aqDateTime.Compare(aqDateTime.Now, endTime) > -1

    ' Loops exits if the elementOb is a valid object (not Nothing) or we've passed the set end time



    If elementOb Is Nothing Then Log.Error "Failed to find element object."


     


    End Sub

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  • azakharov's avatar
    azakharov
    Contributor
    11 years ago
    Thanks a lot Gratis!



    I ended up adding my own function but I wonder if there is something built in.



    Here's what I did (JScript):




    function Wait_For_Element(element, timeout)


    {


      var timer = 0 


      while (element === null  && timer < timeout)


      {


        aqUtils.Delay(500);


     timer += 500;


     element;


      }


    }



    Wait_For_Element(css/xpath selector, 10000);

  • rgratis's avatar
    rgratis
    Frequent Contributor
    11 years ago

    I usually do a code loop until the object is found or until some sort of safety timeout period is exceeded.  I write in VBScript, but hopefully, you can see the intention and create something similar to suit your needs.




     



     'We'll wait for ten seconds


    curTime = aqDateTime.Now


    endTime = aqDateTime.AddSeconds(curTime, 10)




    'Start loop


    Do  



    'Optional delay to space out the attempts to find the element


    aqUtils.Delay 250



    ' QuerySelector will return object or Nothing/null

    Set elementOb = Page.QuerySelector("whatever")

     


    Loop Until Not elementOb Is Nothing Or aqDateTime.Compare(aqDateTime.Now, endTime) > -1

    ' Loops exits if the elementOb is a valid object (not Nothing) or we've passed the set end time



    If elementOb Is Nothing Then Log.Error "Failed to find element object."


     


    End Sub