Selenium: Why does find_elements method does not raise any exception

Question

I have a python code to obtain all the elements with

try:
    restaurantsReviews = self.driver.find_elements(By.XPATH, '//div[@class="review-container"]')
except:
    #los hoteles tienen las opiniones en otro elemento
    restaurantsReviews = self.driver.find_elements(By.XPATH, '//div[@class="YibKl MC R2 Gi z Z BB pBbQr"]')

The element "review-container" does not exists but there is no exception. If I use find_element() instead it raise the exception, but I need to use find_elements() because is a recurrent element.

Answer 1

find_elements()

find_elements() find elements given a By strategy and locator. It returns a list of WebElements.

find_elements() is defined as:

def find_elements(self, by=By.ID, value: Optional[str] = None) -> List[WebElement]:
    """Find elements given a By strategy and locator.

    :Usage:
        ::

            elements = driver.find_elements(By.CLASS_NAME, 'foo')

    :rtype: list of WebElement
    """
    if isinstance(by, RelativeBy):
        _pkg = ".".join(__name__.split(".")[:-1])
        raw_function = pkgutil.get_data(_pkg, "findElements.js").decode("utf8")
        find_element_js = f"/* findElements */return ({raw_function}).apply(null, arguments);"
        return self.execute_script(find_element_js, by.to_dict())

    if by == By.ID:
        by = By.CSS_SELECTOR
        value = f'[id="{value}"]'
    elif by == By.CLASS_NAME:
        by = By.CSS_SELECTOR
        value = f".{value}"
    elif by == By.NAME:
        by = By.CSS_SELECTOR
        value = f'[name="{value}"]'

    # Return empty list if driver returns null
    # See https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/issues/4555
    return self.execute(Command.FIND_ELEMENTS, {"using": by, "value": value})["value"] or []
    

So incase no WebElemens are found it returns an empty list . Hence find_elements() doesn't raises any exception.