Performing a copy and paste with Selenium 2

Is there any way to perform a copy and paste using Selenium 2 and the Python bindings?

I've highlighted the element I want to copy and then I perform the following actions

copyActionChain.key_down(Keys.COMMAND).send_keys('C').key_up(Keys.COMMAND)

However, the highlighted text isn't copied.

To do this on a Mac and on PC, you can use these alternate keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy and paste. Note that some of them aren't available on a physical Mac keyboard, but work because of legacy keyboard shortcuts.

Alternate keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy and paste on a Mac

Cut => control+delete, or control+K
Copy => control+insert
Paste => shift+insert, or control+Y

If this doesn't work, use Keys.META instead, which is the official key that replaces the command ⌘ key

source: https://w3c.github.io/uievents/#keyboardevent

Here is a fully functional example:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains

browser = webdriver.Safari(executable_path = '/usr/bin/safaridriver')
browser.get("http://www.python.org")
elem = browser.find_element_by_name("q")
elem.clear()
actions = ActionChains(browser)
actions.move_to_element(elem)
actions.click(elem) #select the element where to paste text
actions.key_down(Keys.META)
actions.send_keys('v')
actions.key_up(Keys.META)
actions.perform()

So in Selenium (Ruby), this would be roughly something like this to select the text in an element, and then copy it to the clipboard.

# double click the element to select all it's text
element.double_click 

# copy the selected text to the clipboard using CTRL+INSERT
element.send_keys(:control, :insert)

Pretty simple actually:

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

elem = find_element_by_name("our_element")
elem.send_keys("bar")
elem.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'a') # highlight all in box
elem.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'c') # copy
elem.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'v') # paste

I imagine this could probably be extended to other commands as well.

Rather than using the actual keyboard shortcut i would make the webdriver get the text. You can do this by finding the inner text of the element.

WebElement element1 = wd.findElement(By.locatorType(locator));
String text = element1.getText();

This way your test project can actually access the text. This is beneficial for logging purposes, or maybe just to make sure the text says what you want it to say.

from here you can manipulate the element's text as one string so you have full control of what you enter into the element that you're pasting into. Now just

 element2.clear();
 element2.sendKeys(text);

where element2 is the element to paste the text into

elem.send_keys(Keys.SHIFT, Keys.INSERT)

It works FINE on macOS Catalina when you try to paste something.

I cannot try this on OSX at the moment, but it definitely works on FF and Ubuntu:

import os
import time

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

with open('test.html', 'w') as fp:
    fp.write("""\
<html>
<body>
  <form>
    <input type="text" name="intext" value="ABC">
    <br>
    <input type="text" name="outtext">
  </form>
</body>
</html>
""")

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get('file:///{}/test.html'.format(os.getcwd()))
element1 = driver.find_element_by_name('intext')
element2 = driver.find_element_by_name('outtext')
time.sleep(1)
element1.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'a')
time.sleep(1)
element1.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'c')
time.sleep(1)
element2.send_keys(Keys.CONTROL, 'v')

The sleep() statements are just there to be able to see the steps, they are of course not necessary for the program to function.

The ActionChain send_key just switches to the selected element and does a send_keys on it.

Performing a copy and paste with Selenium 2

Alternate keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy and paste on a Mac

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