Accounting for HTML Elements with the Same Attributes

When working with HTML in Watir-Webdriver, determining how many elements of a certain attribute exist is done through the .size function. Determining this element count has multiple uses. If you simply need to confirm that there is a certain number of a specific element, you can easily do so. If you are debugging, it may provide the first step into a series of solutions, as you can determine if your script is identifying a duplicate element in an incorrect location. Here are two scenarios to illustrate how the elements are checked (listing the HTML we are examining and the corresponding Watir command):

1.

HTML

<p class="learnmore">
   <a href="http://3qilabs.com/about/">

Watir

browser.links(:href,"http://3qilabs.com/about/").size
# => 1

2.

HTML

<p class="learnmore">
   <a href="http://3qilabs.com/about/">
<li id="menu-item-23" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-has-children menu-item-23 parent-nav">
   <a href="http://3qilabs.com/about/"></a

Watir

browser.links(:href,"http://3qilabs.com/about/").size
# => 2

We are returned with a count of 1 for the initial example, as there is only 1 instance of a link through to "http://3qilabs.com/about/". The second example, we have 2 instances of the link, thus the returned value of 2.

The .size function can only be engaged by adding an "s": to the end of the element type, pluralizing it. The element type we are using above is ".link", which becomes ".links". The .size function can be used in identifying any type of element within the HTML:

browser.spans(:class,/feature/).size

browser.divs(:class,/column/).size