Typing the Enter/Return key in Selenium

I'm looking for a quick way to type the Enter or Return key in Selenium.

Unfortunately, the form I'm trying to test (not my own code, so I can't modify) doesn't have a Submit button. When working with it manually, I just type Enter or Return. How can I do that with the Selenium type command as there is no button to click?

Solution 1:

import org.openqa.selenium.Keys

WebElement.sendKeys(Keys.RETURN);

The import statement is for Java. For other languages, it is maybe different. For example, in Python it is from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

Solution 2:

Java

driver.findElement(By.id("Value")).sendKeys(Keys.RETURN);

OR,

driver.findElement(By.id("Value")).sendKeys(Keys.ENTER);

Python

from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
driver.find_element_by_name("Value").send_keys(Keys.RETURN)

OR,

driver.find_element_by_name("Value").send_keys(Keys.ENTER)

OR,

element = driver.find_element_by_id("Value")
element.send_keys("keysToSend")
element.submit()

Ruby

element = @driver.find_element(:name, "value")
element.send_keys "keysToSend"
element.submit

OR,

element = @driver.find_element(:name, "value")
element.send_keys "keysToSend"
element.send_keys:return

OR,

@driver.action.send_keys(:enter).perform
@driver.action.send_keys(:return).perform

C#

driver.FindElement(By.Id("Value")).SendKeys(Keys.Return);

OR,

driver.FindElement(By.Id("Value")).SendKeys(Keys.Enter);

Solution 3:

You can use either of Keys.ENTER or Keys.RETURN. Here are some details:

Usage:

• Java:

• Using Keys.ENTER:

       import org.openqa.selenium.Keys;
       driver.findElement(By.id("element_id")).sendKeys(Keys.ENTER);
  

• Using Keys.RETURN

       import org.openqa.selenium.Keys;
       driver.findElement(By.id("element_id")).sendKeys(Keys.RETURN);
  

• Python:

• Using Keys.ENTER:

       from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
       driver.find_element_by_id("element_id").send_keys(Keys.ENTER)
  

• Using Keys.RETURN

       from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
       driver.find_element_by_id("element_id").send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
  

Keys.ENTER and Keys.RETURN both are from org.openqa.selenium.Keys, which extends java.lang.Enum<Keys> and implements java.lang.CharSequence

Enum Keys

Enum Keys is the representations of pressable keys that aren't text. These are stored in the Unicode PUA (Private Use Area) code points, 0xE000-0xF8FF.

Key Codes:

The special keys codes for them are as follows:

• RETURN = u'\ue006'
• ENTER = u'\ue007'

The implementation of all the Enum Keys are handled the same way.

Hence these is No Functional or Operational difference while working with either sendKeys(Keys.ENTER); or WebElement.sendKeys(Keys.RETURN); through Selenium.

Enter Key and Return Key

On computer keyboards, the Enter (or the Return on Mac OS X) in most cases causes a command line, window form, or dialog box to operate its default function. This is typically to finish an "entry" and begin the desired process and is usually an alternative to pressing an OK button.

The Return is often also referred as the Enter and they usually perform identical functions; however in some particular applications (mainly page layout) Return operates specifically like the Carriage Return key from which it originates. In contrast, the Enter is commonly labelled with its name in plain text on generic PC keyboards.

References

• Enter Key
• Carriage Return

Solution 4:

Now that Selenium 2 has been released, it's a bit easier to send an Enter key, since you can do it with the send_keys method of the selenium.webdriver.remote.webelement.WebElement class (this example code is in Python, but the same method exists in Java):

>>> from selenium import webdriver
>>> wd = webdriver.Firefox()
>>> wd.get("http://localhost/example/page")
>>> textbox = wd.find_element_by_css_selector("input")
>>> textbox.send_keys("Hello World\n")