Capybara - check for the existence of a data attribute on a link

Question

I have a link with a specific attribute on my page. Using Rspec + Capybara how can I check for the existence of this link?

<a href="#" id="text" data-content="This is a discrete bar chart.">Foo</a>

Does not work:

page.find(:css, 'a[data-content="This is a discrete bar chart."]')

Works:

page.find(:css, 'a#test')

Solution 1

I have the same query, but the quotes are different.

find("a[data-method='delete']").click

and works for me.

Solution 2

Here are some different ways:

expect(page).to have_selector("a[href='#'][data-content='This is a discrete bar chart.']")

page.has_selector?("a[href='#'][data-content='This is a discrete bar chart.']")

page.find("a[href='#'][data-content='This is a discrete bar chart.']")  # returns the node found

If you don't have access to page but have access to rendered, then

expect(Capybara.string(rendered)).to have_selector("a[href='#'][data-content='This is a discrete bar chart.']")

Solution 3

It could be an issue of Capybara finding too many results. Maybe change 'find' to 'all' and see if you get an array of results that you could select from. Best of luck.

Comments

[Tim Moore]

That looks like it should work. Can you please post the full error message that you see?

[method]

Something to be aware of with this kind of selector is that Capybara selectors match on attributes, not properties, meaning that if you add or change a data value after the page loads you won't be able to find the element using the selector for the data attribute.

[Jon Kern]

A gentle note: This probably should have been a comment to the original question to get clarification from the OP. As this really is not an answer/solution.