Python Selenium - Check if a WebElement is equal to another WebElement

Question

How to compare two selenium WebElements to see if they are the same ?

First I retrieve a list of input_fields and the first_input element:

self.input_fields = driver.find_elements(By.CLASS_NAME, class_name) self.first_input = driver.find_element(By.ID, id)

Then I try to check if input_fields[0] and first_input are the same WebElement.

if self.first_input is not self.input_fields[0]:
    self.__log.warning("WebElement first_input : {} != {}".format(self.first_input, self.input_fields[0]))

Though the session and element are the same, the warning message is in any case triggered.

WARNING  - WebElement first_input: <selenium.webdriver.remote.webelement.WebElement (session="796bf0bcf3e0df528ee932d477951689", element="94a2ee62-9511-45e5-8aa3-bd3d3e9be309")> != <selenium.webdriver.remote.webelement.WebElement (session="796bf0bcf3e0df528ee932d477951689", element="94a2ee62-9511-45e5-8aa3-bd3d3e9be309")>

Answer 1

Edit: the use of != instead of is not would have resolved everything:

if self.first_input != self.input_fields[0]:

Solution

if self.first_input.id == self.input_fields[0].id:
    self.__log.info("Same element {} , {}".format(self.first_input.id, self.input_fields[0].id))

Reading the docs I've found the id property, whose definition serves as getter for the private attribute _id

@property
def id(self):
    """Internal ID used by selenium.

    This is mainly for internal use. Simple use cases such as checking if 2
    webelements refer to the same element, can be done using ``==``::

        if element1 == element2:
            print("These 2 are equal")

    """
    return self._id

source

class WebElement(object):
    def __init__(self, parent, id_, w3c=False):
        self._parent = parent
        self._id = id_
        self._w3c = w3c

---

Note:

print("{}".format(self.first_input.id))

Gives us the element id which is the same that we have seen in the object.

94a2ee62-9511-45e5-8aa3-bd3d3e9be309

Answer 2

Compare WebElements should work, print id of first_element and input_fields[0] to check. Also, print all ids of input_fields to check if there are any duplicate elements with the same id.

As an option you can try to compare the full CSS path of the two elements, source .

script = """
function fullPath(element){
  var names = [];
  while (element.parentNode) {
      if (element==element.ownerDocument.documentElement) names.unshift(element.tagName);
      else{
        for (var i=1, e=element; e.previousElementSibling; e=e.previousElementSibling,i++);
        names.unshift(element.tagName+":nth-child("+i+")");
      }
      element=element.parentNode;
  }
  return names.join(" > ");
}
return fullPath(arguments[0]);
"""

first_input_full_path = driver.execute_script(script, self.first_input)
another_input_full_path = driver.execute_script(script, self.input_fields[0])

if first_input_full_path == another_input_full_path:
    self.__log.warning("WebElement first_input : {} != {}".format(self.first_input, self.input_fields[0]))