XPath loop with Selenium and perl

Question

Hi,

I'm trying to extract all name values in input fields using selenium and perl. Part of the value, enough to identify it, is known, the rest is unknown:

This xpath works in finding all relevant matches:

//tr/td//input[contains(@name,'partofname')]

So, in perl:

my $xpath = qq(//tr/td//input[contains(\@name,'partofname')]);
my $count = $sel->get_xpath_count($xpath);

Fine, $count gives a suitable count of matches.

However, how to extract the value of the @name attribute for each individual matches?

I understand the principle is to construct a loop:

foreach my $row (1 .. $count) {
#extract here
};

However, I can't seem to construct an xpath expression which will work to find each $row that the expression matched. So I think it's the correct xpath expression to get each individual match that I need help with.

Any pointers appreciated

Answer 1

Try //tr/td/descendant::input[contains(@name,'partofname')][1]

Replace 1 with your counter. If that doesn't could you add some HTML to your question so I can perhaps suggest a better XPath?

Answer 2

However, how to extract the value of the @name attribute for each individual matches?

In case this XPath expression selects all elements with the wanted attribute (as stated in the qustion):

//tr/td//input[contains(@name,'partofname')] 

then this XPath expression selects all name attributes:

//tr/td//input[contains(@name,'partofname')]/@name

Then you'll only need in your programming language to iterate through this final node-set.