Web Scraping Using Selenium - Navigation Using Form Submit

Selenium Navigation - Form Submission

Navigations in selenium can be done in different ways. In this tutorial, we will use the form submission functionality.

But before that, please make sure you have read the first blog on this series to do the prerequisites.

Selenium Navigation Using Form Element Submit

1. Create a file seleniumnavform.py and paste the following codes

   from selenium import webdriver
   import time
   

   The codes above imports the required library that we will use.
2. Add this line

   driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path="geckodriver.exe")
   

   The code above will create a webdriver instance for Firefox.
3. Add this line

   driver.get("https://slackingslacker.github.io/seleniumindex#/forms")
   

   The line will go to the website (https://slackingslacker.github.io/seleniumindex#/forms).
4. Add this line

   time.sleep(5)
   

   We will pause the program for 5 seconds.
5. Add this line

   el = driver.find_element_by_css_selector("div > form")
   

   This code will find an element using a CSS selector. The code will find a form element that is a direct child of a div.
6. Add this line

   el.submit()
   

   This will submit form.
7. Add this line

   time.sleep(10)
   

   We will pause the program for 10 seconds to see that it submitted the form.
8. Add this line

   driver.close()
   

   The line will close the webdriver as well as the browser.
9. Run the seleniumnavform.py. It should do the following:
   • Open the firefox browser
   • Browser goes to https://slackingslacker.github.io/seleniumindex#/forms
   • Halts for 5 seconds
   • Finds the form tag
   • Submits the form without click a button
   • Halts for 10 seconds
   • Closes the browser

 

Final Selenium Code

from selenium import webdriver
import time

driver = webdriver.Firefox(executable_path="geckodriver.exe")
driver.get("https://slackingslacker.github.io/seleniumindex#/forms")
time.sleep(5)

el = driver.find_element_by_css_selector("div > form")
el.submit()
time.sleep(10)

driver.close()

 

Conclusion

Navigation in selenium can be done using submission of a form element.