how to access this element

Question

I am using Watir to write some tests for a web application. I need to get the text 'Bishop' from the HTML below but can't figure out how to do it.

<div id="dnn_ctr353_Main_ctl00_ctl00_ctl00_ctl07_Field_048b9dfa-bc64-42e4-8bd5-b45385e5f45b_view" style="display: block;">
   <div class="workprolabel wpFieldLabel">
    <span title="Please select a courtesy title from the list.">Title</span>&nbsp;<span class="validationIndicator wpValidationText"></span>
   </div>
   <span class="wpFieldViewContent" id="dnn_ctr353_Main_ctl00_ctl00_ctl00_ctl07_Field_048b9dfa-bc64-42e4-8bd5-b45385e5f45b_view_value"><p class="wpFieldValue ">Bishop</p></span>
  </div>

Firebug tells me the xpath is:

html/body/form/div[5]/div[6]/div[2]/div[2]/div/div/span/span/div[2]/div[4]/div[1]/span[1]/div[2]/span/p/text()

but I cant format the element_by_xpath to pick it up.

Answer 1

Try

//span[@id='dnn_ctr353_Main_ctl00_ctl00_ctl00_ctl07_Field_048b9dfa-bc64-42e4-8bd5b45385e5f45b_view_value']//text()

EDIT:

Maybe this will work

path = "//span[@id='dnn_ctr353_Main_ctl00_ctl00_ctl00_ctl07_Field_048b9dfa-bc64-42e4-8bd5b45385e5f45b_view_value']/p";
ie.element_by_xpath(path).text

And check if the span's id is constant

Answer 2

You should be able to access the paragraph right away if it's unique:

my_p = browser.p(:class, "wpFieldValue ")
my_text = my_p.text

See HTML Elements Supported by Watir

Answer 3

Maybe you have an extra space in the end of the name?

<p class="wpFieldValue ">

Answer 4

Try one of these (worked for me, please notice trailing space after wpFieldValue in the first example):

browser.p(:class => "wpFieldValue ").text
#=> "Bishop"

browser.span(:id => "dnn_ctr353_Main_ctl00_ctl00_ctl00_ctl07_Field_048b9dfa-bc64-42e4-8bd5-b45385e5f45b_view_value").text
#=> "Bishop"