Locators in Selenium

Locators in Selenium

In Selenium, locators are used to identify and interact with elements on a web page (like buttons, text fields, dropdowns, etc.). Selenium WebDriver provides several types of locators to find elements efficiently.  

Types of Locators in Selenium

1. ID Locator

• Finds an element by its id attribute (unique on a page).

# Syntax
driver.findElement(By.id("element-id"));

# html code
<input id="username" type="text">


# Example
WebElement username = driver.findElement(By.id("username"));

2. Name Locator

• Finds elements by their name attribute (not always unique).

# Syntax
driver.findElement(By.name("element-name"));

# html code
<input name="email" type="text">

# Example
WebElement email = driver.findElement(By.name("email"));

3. CSS Selector

• Uses XML path expressions to navigate the DOM.

# Syntax
driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("css-selector"));

# html code
#username            /* By ID */
.btn-submit          /* By Class */
input[name='email']  /* By Attribute */
div > p              /* Child Selector */

4. XPath Locator #

• Uses XML path expressions to navigate the DOM.

# Syntax
driver.findElement(By.xpath("xpath-expression"));

# html code
//input[@id='username']       /* Finds by ID */
//*[contains(text(),'Login')] /* Partial text match */
//div[@class='container']/a   /* Child element */

5. Link Text

• Link Text: Finds a link by its exact text.

# html code
<a href="/reset">Forgot Password?</a>

# Example for link Text
driver.findElement(By.linkText("Forgot Password?"));

6. Partial Link Text

• Partial Link Text: Finds a link by partial text match.

# html code
<a href="/reset">Forgot Password?</a>

# Example for partia
l link text
driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText("Forgot"));

7. Class Name Locator

• Finds elements by their class attribute (can match multiple elements).

# Syntax
driver.findElement(By.className("class-name"));

# html code
<button class="btn-submit">Submit</button>

# Example
WebElement submitBtn = driver.findElement(By.className("btn-submit"));

8. Tag Name Locator

• Finds elements by their HTML tag (e.g., <div>, <a>, <input>).

# Syntax
driver.findElement(By.tagName("tag-name"));

# html code
<a href="/login">Login</a>

# Example
WebElement link = driver.findElement(By.tagName("a"));

Which Locator to Use?

Locator	When to Use
ID	Best (if unique)
Name	Good for forms
CSS Selector	Faster than XPath, flexible
XPath	Complex traversals (parent/child)
Link Text	Only for hyperlinks
Class/Tag	Less reliable (often multiple matches)

Best Practices

1. Prefer ID or Name (if available, as they are fastest).
2. Use CSS Selector for better performance than XPath.
3. Avoid XPath for simple cases (slower in older browsers).
4. Use relative XPath (//) instead of absolute (/html/…).
5. Avoid dynamic attributes (e.g., id=”button-1234″ changes frequently).

Locators are fundamental in Selenium automation, and choosing the right one improves script stability and performance.