Before handling dropdown in Selenium and controlling drop-down boxes, we must do following two things:
Import the package org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select
Instantiate the drop-down box as an object, Select in Selenium WebDriver
As an example, go to Mercury Tours’ Registration page (http://demo.guru99.com/test/newtours/register.php) and notice the “Country” drop-down box there.
Step 1) Import the “Select” package. import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select; Step 2) Declare the drop-down element as an instance of the Select class. In the example below, we named this instance as “drpCountry”. Select drpCountry = new Select(driver.findElement(By.name(“country”))); Step 3) Start Controlling it. We can now start controlling “drpCountry” by using any of the available Select methods to select dropdown in Selenium. The sample code below will select the option “ANTARCTICA.” drpCountry.selectByVisibleText(“ANTARCTICA”);
Select Class in Selenium
The Select Class in Selenium is a method used to implement the HTML SELECT tag. The html select tag provides helper methods to select and deselect the elements. The Select class is an ordinary class so New keyword is used to create its object and it specifies the web element location.
Select Methods in Selenium
The following are the most common methods used on Selenium dropdown list.
#1) selectByVisibleText() and deselectByVisibleText()
Selects/deselects the option that displays the text matching the parameter. Parameter: The exactly displayed text of a particular option
Example: drpCountry.selectByVisibleText(“ANTARCTICA”);
#2) selectByValue() and deselectByValue()
Selects/deselects the option whose “value” attribute matches the specified parameter. Remember that not all drop-down options have the same text and “value”, like in the example below. Parameter: value of the “value” attribute
Example:
drpCountry.selectByValue(“234”);
#3) selectByIndex() and deselectByIndex()
Selects/deselects the option at the given index. Parameter: the index of the option to be selected.
Example: drpCountry.selectByIndex(0);
#4) isMultiple()
Returns TRUE if the drop-down element allows multiple selections at a time; FALSE if otherwise. Parameter: Not needed
Example if (drpCountry.isMultiple()) { //do something here }
#5) deselectAll()
Clears all selected entries. This is only valid when the drop-down element supports multiple selections. Parameter: Not needed
Example: drpCountry.deselectAll();
Complete Code of Select Methods in Selenium
Selecting Items in a Multiple SELECT elements
We can also use the selectByVisibleText() method in selecting multiple options in a multi SELECT element. As an example, we will take https://jsbin.com/osebed/2 as the base URL. It contains a drop-down box that allows multiple selections at a time.
The code below will select the first two options using the selectByVisibleText() method.
To control drop-down boxes, you must first import the org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select package and then create a Select instance. deselectByVisibleText() deselectByValue() deselectByIndex()
