(By.cssSelector("input#email"))
(By.cssSelector("#email"))

• HTML tag – HTML tag of the element being accessed
• # – The hash sign is use to symbolize ID attribute. It is mandatory to use hash sign if ID attribute is use to create CSS Selector.
• Value of ID attribute – It is the value of an ID attribute that access. A hash sign always precedes the value of ID.

If two or more web elements have the same HTML tag and attribute value, the first element marked in the page source will identify.

2) Located by Class

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("input.inputtext"))

• HTML tag = HTML tag of the element being accessed
• . = the dot sign should always be present when using CSS with class
• class = class of the element being accessed

3) Located by Attribute

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("input[type='email']"))

• HTML tag = HTML tag of the element being accessed
• [ and ] = square brackets within which a specific attribute and its corresponding value will be placed
• attribute = attribute to be used, preferable unique to the element
• value = corresponding value of the chosen attribute.

4) Located by  ID/Class and attribute

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("input.inputtext[name='email']")

• HTML tag = HTML tag of the element being accessed
• . = the dot sign should always be present when using a CSS with class
• class = class of the element being accessed
• [ and ] = square brackets within which a specific attribute and its corresponding value will be placed
• attribute = attribute to be used, preferable unique to the element
• value = corresponding value of the chosen attribute.

5) Located by Sub String Matches

CSS in Selenium has an interesting feature of allowing partial string matches using ^, $, and *.

a) Starts with (^): To select the element, we would use ^ which means ‘starts with’.

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("input[name^='em']"))

• ^– Symbolic notation to match a string using prefix.

Prefix – It is the string based on which match operation is performed. The likely string is expected to start with the specified string

b) Ends with ($): To select the element, we would use $ which means ‘ends with’.

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("input[name$='il']"))

• $ – Symbolic notation to match a string using suffix.
• The suffix – It is the string based on which match operation is perform. The likely string is expect to ends with the specified string.

c) Contains (*): To select the element, we would use * which means ‘sub-string’.

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("input[name*='rst']"))
 
(By.cssSelector("input:contains('rst')")

* – This is used to match the sub-string

6) Locating child element

Here, id =”content” is the parent locator. It will go to first div as child or sub child, then again div as child or sub child, and third div as child or sub child. Then it will go to div class _4bl7 _m-_ which further go to div class _ihd _3ma mbs _6n _6s _6v.

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("#content>div>div>div>div._4bl7._m-_>div._ihd._3ma.mbs._6n._6s._6v"))

Locating nth Child:

To locate the element with text ‘Female’, we use nth type css.

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("#u_0_13 > span:nth-child(1) > label"))

To select the last child element, i.e. ‘Male’, we can use.

Syntax

(By.cssSelector("#u_0_13 > span:last-child> label"))

Now, let’s write a small program to show the use of CSS Selectors. This program is it we have done for XPath , the only difference is the use of CSS Selectors to identify the web elements.

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
 
public class Selenium_Site {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
                  System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","C:\\Users\\vibha\\Downloads\\geckodriver-v0.24.0-win64\\geckodriver.exe");
          WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
          driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
          driver.get("https://www.amazon.com//");
          driver.manage().window().maximize();

          //CSS for Search box by using ID
          driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input#twotabsearchtextbox")).sendKeys("hard drive");

          //CSS for search button by using class
           driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input.nav-input")).click();
     }
}