Compound class names are not supported error in WebDriver

Question

I have a method to count the number of elements in divs and to return their number.

 public int getNumberOfOpenBets() {

     openBetsSlip = driver.findElement(By.id("form_open_bets"));
     openBets = openBetsSlip.findElements(By.className(" cashout_noCash"));
     return openBets.size();
 }

That's the page source

<form id="form_open_bets" method="post" name="form_open_bets">
    <input type="hidden" value="" name="action">
    <input type="hidden" value="" name="bet_id">
    <input type="hidden" value="" name="cashout_price">
    <input id="target_page" type="hidden" value="" name="target_page">
    <div id="By.id" class="slipWrapper ">
        <div id="openBets_header"></div>
        <div id="cashout_1626" class=" cashout_noCash">
            <div id="cashout_1625" class=" cashout_noCash">
                <div id="cashout_1615" class=" cashout_noCash">
                    <div id="cashout_1614" class=" cashout_noCash">
                        <div id="cashout_1613" class=" cashout_noCash">
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</form>

WebDriver is throwing the following error: Compound class names are not supported. Consider searching for one class name and filtering the results or use CSS selectors.

org.openqa.selenium.InvalidSelectorException: Compound class names are not supported. Consider searching for one class name and filtering the results or use CSS selectors.
For documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/invalid_selector_exception.html
Build info: version: '2.31.0', revision: '1bd294d185a80fa4206dfeab80ba773c04ac33c0', time: '2013-02-27 13:51:26'
System info: os.name: 'Windows 7', os.arch: 'amd64', os.version: '6.1', java.version: '1.7.0_17'
Driver info: driver.version: unknown
    at org.openqa.selenium.By.className(By.java:131)
    at elements.betslip.Betslip.getNumberOfOpenBets(Betslip.java:136)
    at testSomething(SomethingTest.java:117)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:47)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:12)
    at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:44)
    at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.InvokeMethod.evaluate(InvokeMethod.java:17)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runLeaf(ParentRunner.java:271)
    at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:70)
    at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:50)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:238)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:63)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:236)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:53)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:229)
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:309)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:50)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)

EDIT:

As it turned out WerbDriver doesn't support spaces in the class names, omg.

Could you guys please help me to use CSS selector in this situation in order to find the elements?

Solution 1

This is exactly as expected. If your class name includes a space, WebDriver will see it as a "compound selector". You can either remove the space in your By.className() locator, which should still find the elements you're looking for; or you can move to finding by CSS selectors, using something like By.cssSelector(".cashout_noCash"), which offer far more flexibility for similar functionality. This is exactly what the exception message says.

Solution 2

You can include compound class names selectors by leaving no gap between any of them.

For example if your div is:

<div class="k-calendar-container k-popup k-group k-reset"></div>

Then your selector will be:

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("k-calendar-container.k-popup.k-group.k-reset"));

Solution 3

Here is a Ruby answer if anyone needs it. The conclusion I reached is that some of the solutions that worked for java above either don't work on my machine or don't work for Ruby at all (although I am not sure which is the case).

If the html is:

<a class="button orange-bg" href="http://www.MyCarmelHome.com" target="_blank">
     access web portal
</a>

The format to find this element would be:

logInBtn = driver.find_element(:css, ".button.orange-bg")

I used this because the following wouldn't work:

1. Replacing the spaces with '.' and finding by css selector (you need to put a period at the front).

2. Removing the spaces in the compound class name and using the class name locator.

Solution 4

driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(".cashout_noCash"));

View more solutions

Comments

[Atanas Kanchev]

Thanks Jim, the page source is full with elements with spaces in the locators, I just want to kill the devs :-) Could you please give an example of CSS selectors used in this situation? Many Thanks, Atanas

[JimEvans]

Updated my answer to give you more detail. With a single class like your sample shows, you don't have to use CSS selectors in that case; just use the single class you're looking for without the space. By.className("cashout_noCash") (note no spaces in the class name).

[user2875994]

the cssselector string would need a "." at the beginning as well.

[Emjey]

Saved a lot of time for me! Damn, those spaces in the class.

[Black]

I still get Facebook\WebDriver\Exception\NoSuchElementException: Unable to locate element: .t3-icon.t3-icon-actions.t3-icon-actions-document.t3-icon-do‌​cument-view If I try to select an icon in TYPO3