How to Select Value from DropDown using Selenium Webdriver

How to Select Dropdown in Selenium

Following is a step by step process on how to select value from dropdown in Selenium:

Before handling dropdown in Selenium and controlling drop-down boxes, we must do following two things:

  1. Import the package org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select
  2. Instantiate the drop-down box as an object, Select in Selenium WebDriver

As an example, go to Mercury Tours’ Registration page (https://demo.guru99.com/test/newtours/register.php) and notice the “Country” drop-down box there.

Select Dropdown in Selenium

Step 1) Import the “Select” package.

import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select;

Step 2) Declare the drop-down element as an instance of the Select class.

In the example below, we named this instance as “drpCountry”.

Select drpCountry = new Select(driver.findElement(By.name("country")));

Step 3) Start Controlling it.

We can now start controlling “drpCountry” by using any of the available Select methods to select dropdown in Selenium. The sample code below will select the option “ANTARCTICA.”

drpCountry.selectByVisibleText("ANTARCTICA");

Select Class in Selenium

The Select Class in Selenium is a method used to implement the HTML SELECT tag. The html select tag provides helper methods to select and deselect the elements. The Select class is an ordinary class so New keyword is used to create its object and it specifies the web element location.

Select Methods in Selenium

The following are the most common methods used on Selenium dropdown list.

#1) selectByVisibleText() and deselectByVisibleText()

  • Selects/deselects the option that displays the text matching the parameter.
  • Parameter: The exactly displayed text of a particular option

Example:

drpCountry.selectByVisibleText("ANTARCTICA");

#2) selectByValue() and deselectByValue()

  • Selects/deselects the option whose “value” attribute matches the specified parameter.
  • Remember that not all drop-down options have the same text and “value”, like in the example below.
  • Parameter: value of the “value” attribute

Example:

SelectByValue and deselectbyvalue

drpCountry.selectByValue("234");

#3) selectByIndex() and deselectByIndex()

  • Selects/deselects the option at the given index.
  • Parameter: the index of the option to be selected.

Example:

drpCountry.selectByIndex(0);

#4) isMultiple()

  • Returns TRUE if the drop-down element allows multiple selections at a time; FALSE if otherwise.
  • Parameter: Not needed

Example

if (drpCountry.isMultiple())
{
//do something here
}

#5) deselectAll()

  • Clears all selected entries. This is only valid when the drop-down element supports multiple selections.
  • Parameter: Not needed

Example:

drpCountry.deselectAll();

Complete Code of Select Methods in Selenium

package newpackage;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;

public class accessDropDown {
 public static void main(String[] args) { 
		System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","C:\\geckodriver.exe");
	    String baseURL = "https://demo.guru99.com/test/newtours/register.php";
	    WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
		driver.get(baseURL);

		Select drpCountry = new Select(driver.findElement(By.name("country")));
		drpCountry.selectByVisibleText("ANTARCTICA");

		//Selecting Items in a Multiple SELECT elements
		driver.get("http://jsbin.com/osebed/2");
		Select fruits = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id("fruits")));
		fruits.selectByVisibleText("Banana");
		fruits.selectByIndex(1);
 }
}

Selecting Items in a Multiple SELECT elements

We can also use the selectByVisibleText() method in selecting multiple options in a multi SELECT element. As an example, we will take https://jsbin.com/osebed/2 as the base URL. It contains a drop-down box that allows multiple selections at a time.

Selecting Items In A Multiple Select Elements

The code below will select the first two options using the selectByVisibleText() method.

Selecting Items In A Multiple Select Elements

Summary

Command Description
selectByVisibleText()/

deselectByVisibleText()

selects/deselects an option by its displayed text
selectByValue()/

deselectByValue()

selects/deselects an option by the value of its “value” attribute
selectByIndex()/

deselectByIndex()

selects/deselects an option by its index
isMultiple() returns TRUE if the drop-down element allows multiple selection at a time; FALSE if otherwise
deselectAll() deselects all previously selected options

To control drop-down boxes, you must first import the org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select package and then create a Select instance.