Why doesn't the selector h3:nth-child(1):contains('a') work?
I check this selector:
h3:nth-child(1):contains('a')
selector doesn't work?
I check this in firefinder and does return nothing (not info that there is zero elements)
Then check this:
h3:nth-child(1)
and it returns h3, so selector is almost good, but something with this(h3 has text 'a') text goes wrong.
:contains() is not was going to be a CSS3 selector (thanks T.J. Crowder for the link), but it didn't make it, most likely because the way it works tends to lead to severe performance and over-selection issues. For example, if an element E matches :contains() for a given string argument, then all of its ancestors would also match; using it with a universal selector would lead to unexpected results with certain style properties, on top of being slow for the browser.
There is no other CSS selector that serves a purpose like :contains(). So you'll have to find some other way, either by modifying your HTML or even by using jQuery's :contains(), to achieve the effect you want:
Select an
h3element
if it is the first child of its parent
and its text contains the letter 'a'.
For jQuery and Selenium RC users: :contains() is implemented in the Sizzle selector engine used by jQuery, which is also used in Selenium RC (but not Selenium WebDriver). It works as described in this decade-old revision of the CSS3 spec, but again, due to how the spec describes it, you need to use it with care or it may lead to unexpected selections.
On a final note, h3:nth-child(1) can be replaced with h3:first-child, which as a CSS2 selector has better browser support.
If you're trying to use :contains(a) to find an anchor tag (rather than the letter A), you could use:
h3:nth-child(1) a
or
h3:first-child a
The
:contains()pseudo-class isn't in the CSS Spec and is not supported by either Firefox or Chrome.
You can find a couple of detailed discussion in:
- selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException with "span:contains('string')"
- Finding link using text in CSS Selector is not working
Solution
As a solution you have to drop the contains() part and your effective locator will be:
h3:nth-child(1)
Further as @BoltClock mentioned within his answer, you can also use:
h3:first-child
As an alternative, you can also use:
h3:first-of-type
tl; dr
- selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException with "span:contains('string')"
- Finding link using text in CSS Selector is not working