Dynamic elements in locators?

[gerrymcgovern1]

I am testing an application where I have to select different items in a navigation bar. So in my locators I have:

"ShoesCategory": "//a[contains(text(),'Shoes')]",
"CoatsCategory": "//a[contains(text(),'Coats')]",

and then I have 2 separate methods like this to click

def click_shoes_category(self):
    self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.ShoesCategory)

def click_coats_category(self):
   self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.CoatsCategory)

I have quite a number of different categories to select and verify, is there a way to DRY this up so that I can pass a variable into the locator? So something like this:

"category": "//a[contains(text(),'[%s]')] % category"

And then have a method like this:

 def click_category(self, category):
     self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.category)

Any help would be great, thanks!

[boakley]

You would do it almost exactly how you specified, just move the substitution to where you actually use the locator ... "category": "//a[contains(text(),'[%s]')]" ... def click_category(self, category): self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.category % category) when I do this in my own code, I usually name the locator with a suffix such as "template" or "pattern" (eg: "category_template")

…

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 3:14 PM, Gerry McGovern ***@***.***> wrote: I am testing an application where I have to select different items in a navigation bar. So in my locators I have: "ShoesCategory": "//a[contains(text(),'Shoes')]", "CoatsCategory": "//a[contains(text(),'Coats')]", and then I have 2 separate methods like this to click def click_shoes_category(self): self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.ShoesCategory) def click_coats_category(self): self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.CoatsCategory) I have quite a number of different categories to select and verify, is there a way to DRY this up so that I can pass a variable into the locator? So something like this: "category": "//a[contains(text(),'[%s]')] % category" And then have a method like this: def click_category(self, category): self.se2lib.click_element(self.locator.category) Any help would be great, thanks! — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#12>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABEmYvxybgRQwYhLGLO5hVoKTWAc7yotks5tWeQcgaJpZM4SLHJH> .

[gerrymcgovern1]

Thanks boakley! That worked, although I just had to use %s rather than [%s]