How to retrieve partial text from a text node using Selenium and Python

Question

I want to get only " text ... " not using .split() or index slicing

HTML:

<a class="call_recipe" href="/recipes/2913">
      " text ... "
      <strong> something~ </strong>
    </a>

HTML Snapshot:

Answer 1

To print text ... you have to induce WebDriverWait for the visibility_of_element_located() and you can use either of the following Locator Strategies:

• Using CSS_SELECTOR, childNodes and strip():

  print(driver.execute_script('return arguments[0].firstChild.textContent;', WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "a.call_recipe[href^='/recipes']")))).strip())
  

• Using XPATH, get_attribute() and splitlines():

  print(WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.XPATH, "//a[@class='call_recipe' and starts-with(@href, '/recipes')]"))).get_attribute("innerHTML").splitlines()[1])
  

• Note : You have to add the following imports :

  from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
  from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
  from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
  

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References

You can find a couple of relevant detailed discussions in:

• How to get specific text that belongs to div class
• How to get text from textnodes seperated by whitespace using Selenium and Python