How to Find Element by Name in Selenium Python?


Find Element by Name

To find an HTML Element by name attribute using Selenium in Python, call find_element() method and pass By.NAME as the first argument, and the name attribute's value (of the HTML Element we need to find) as the second argument.

find_element(By.NAME, "name_value")

If there are multiple HTML Elements with the same given value for name attribute, then find_element() returns the first HTML Element of those.

Examples

1. There is only a single element by given name

In the following example, we have an HTML page with a div element whose name="xyz". In the Python program, we will find the HTML element whose name attribute has a value of 'xyz', using find_element() method, and print that element to the console.

We shall load the following HTML webpage present at the URL: /tmp/selenium/index-41.html.

<html>
 <body>
  <p>Hello World!</p>
  <div name="xyz">Read More</div>
  <div>Go Back</div>
 </body>
</html>

Python Program (Selenium)

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Setup chrome driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Navigate to the url
driver.get('/tmp/selenium/index-41.html')

# Find element by id
my_div = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'xyz')
print(my_div.get_attribute('outerHTML'))

# Close the driver
driver.quit()

Output

<div name="xyz">Read More</div>

2. There are multiple elements by given name

Now, let us consider the scenario where there are multiple HTML Elements with the same name. We will use find_element() function to find the first element whose name attribute has a value of 'xyz'.

Even through there are two elements with the same given name, find_element() returns only the first element.

HTML webpage

We shall load the following webpage present at URL: /tmp/selenium/index-42.html

<html>
 <body>
  <p>First Article</p>
  <div name="xyz">Read More 1</div>
  <div>Go Back</div>
  <br>
  <p>Second Article</p>
  <div name="xyz">Read More 2</div>
  <div>Go Back</div>
 </body>
</html>

Python Program (Selenium)

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Setup chrome driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Navigate to the url
driver.get('/tmp/selenium/index-42.html')

# Find element by id
my_div = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'xyz')
print(my_div.get_attribute('outerHTML'))

# Close the driver
driver.quit()

Output

<div name="xyz">Read More 1</div>

3. There is no element by given name

If there is no element by given name, find_element() function raises NoSuchElementException.

In the following example, we have taken an HTML page with no elements by name="apple". When we try to find element by the name='apple' using find_element() function, the function throws NoSuchElementException.

HTML webpage

We shall load the following webpage present at URL: /tmp/selenium/index-42.html

<html>
 <body>
  <p>First Article</p>
  <div name="xyz">Read More 1</div>
  <div>Go Back</div>
  <br>
  <p>Second Article</p>
  <div name="xyz">Read More 2</div>
  <div>Go Back</div>
 </body>
</html>

Python Program (Selenium)

from selenium import webdriver
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service as ChromeService
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Setup chrome driver
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=ChromeService(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Navigate to the url
driver.get('/tmp/selenium/index-42.html')

# Find element by id
my_div = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'apple')
print(my_div.get_attribute('outerHTML'))

# Close the driver
driver.quit()

Output

    raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException: Message: no such element: Unable to locate element: {"method":"css selector","selector":"[name="asdf"]"}

Summary

In this tutorial of Python Examples, we learned how to find an element by name attribute in webpage using Selenium.