Is there a way to use xpath to check for an empty string text value in an element? (Cucumber/Capybara/Selenium)

rubyonrails-talk
1

I have the following Cucumber step where I am trying to verify that the value of this element is empty, i.e. no characters:

 Then I should see "" within the "dominant_occiput" selector cell

It hits the following custom step where I am using XPath to focus in on the element, of course this step also should accept text and also match on that value:

Then /^I should see “([^"])" within the "([^"])” selector cell$/ do |text, id| msg = “No selector_cell found with the content of ‘#{text}’ and id of #{id}” assert page.find(:xpath,“//*[@id=‘#{id}’ and contains(concat(’ ‘,normalize-space(@class),’ ‘),’ selector_cell ‘) and text()=’#{(text)}']”, :visible => true) end

Is there a way to do this? I see some writing online that XPath does not recognize ‘empty’ situations. Is this true/and/or is there a better way?

Thanks,

David

2

why arent you using “should not see” with a regular expression for any character? it does take regex. i havent test this but it looks closer than what you are trying to do.

3

why arent you using “should not see” with a regular expression for any character? it does take regex. i havent test this but it looks closer than what you are trying to do.

Oh man, you are right. Originally I had a method only looking for certain text within a certain class - ‘selector_cell’. Then when I added the id to the function I forgot about the original web step.

4

glad i could help.