Handling Drop down in Selenium

Dropdown menus are an essential element of many web applications, providing users with a convenient way to select options from a list. As a test automation engineer, it's crucial to understand how to interact with dropdown menus effectively. In this blog, we'll explore various strategies to handle dropdown menus in Selenium, empowering you to automate your tests seamlessly.

Select Class in Selenium

In Selenium, the Select class provides the implementation of the HTML SELECT tag. A Select tag provides the helper methods with select and deselect options. As Select is an ordinary class, its object is created by the keyword New and also specifies the location of the web element.

Syntax:

Select objSelect = new Select();

Identify the Dropdown Element:

The first step is to locate the dropdown element on the web page. Selenium provides several locating mechanisms, such as by ID, by class, by XPath, or by CSS selector. Choose the most appropriate method based on the structure and attributes of the dropdown element.

Select by Visible Text: If the dropdown options are displayed as visible text, you can use the Select class in Selenium to interact with the dropdown. Instantiate a new Select object by passing the dropdown element as a parameter, and then use the selectByVisibleText() method to choose the desired option.

WebElement dropdownElement = driver.findElement(By.id("dropdown-id"));
Select dropdown = new Select(dropdownElement);
dropdown.selectByVisibleText("option1");

Select by Value: Dropdown options often have associated values that may not be visible to the user. In such cases, you can use the selectByValue() method provided by the Select class in Selenium. This method selects the option based on its attribute value.

WebElement dropdownElement = driver.findElement(By.id("dropdown-id"));
Select dropdown = new Select(dropdownElement);
dropdown.selectByValue("option1value");

Select by Index: Sometimes, dropdown options are not uniquely identifiable by their text or value. In such situations, you can use the selectByIndex() method, which selects an option based on its index. The index starts at 0 for the first option and increments for each subsequent option.

WebElement dropdownElement = driver.findElement(By.id("dropdown-id"));
Select dropdown = new Select(dropdownElement);
dropdown.selectByIndex(0); // Selects the first option

Handling Multi-Select Dropdowns: Dropdown menus that allow multiple selections require a different approach. Instead of the Select class, you need to use Selenium's basic WebElement methods to interact with each option individually. To select multiple options, use the click() method on each option element.

List<WebElement> options = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//select[@id='dropdown-id']/option"));
for (WebElement option : options) {
    option.click(); // Select each option
}

Verify Dropdown Selection: To validate that the correct option has been selected in a dropdown, you can retrieve the selected option and compare it with the expected value.

WebElement dropdownElement = driver.findElement(By.id("dropdown-id")); Select dropdown = new Select(dropdownElement); 
String selectedOption = dropdown.getFirstSelectedOption().getText(); Assert.assertEquals(selectedOption, "Option 1"); 

Conclusion:

Dropdown menus are a common element in web applications, and mastering their handling in Selenium is crucial for efficient test automation. By following the techniques described in this blog, you can confidently interact with dropdowns, select options by visible text, value, or index, handle multi-select dropdowns, and verify the selected option.

Happy Learning...!!!