Get text from CSS property content on a - before pseudo element in Selenium WebDriver

Question

I am trying to verify the text but I get a message displayed saying "The information provided is either invalid or incomplete." I am using Selenium/WebDriver in Java.

I have the following HTML:

<div id="validationError">
    <ul>
        <li>Required: Server Name</li>
        <li>Required: Receiving Port</li>
    </ul>
</div>

CSS code is as follows:

#validationError:before {
    content: 'The information provided is either invalid or incomplete.';
}

Java Code:

WebElement errorBox = browser.findElement(By.id("validationError"));
Assert.assertNotNull("Could not find validation errors", errorBox);

System.out.println("Error Explanation: " + error.getCssValue("content") + "\n");

List<WebElement> errorList = errorBox.findElements(By.tagName("li"));
for (WebElement error : errorList) {
    System.out.println("Error: " + error.getText());
}

System.out.println("\nError Full Text: " + errorBox.getText());

The output of the above code is shown below:

Error Explanation:

Error: Required: Server Name
Error: Required: Receiving Port

Error Full Text: Required: Server Name
Required: Receiving Port

I can't find a way to verify the text "The information provided is either invalid or incomplete." is displayed. Calling getText() on the web element also does not return the expected string but will display any other normal text within that div. how to solve this?

Answer 1

I am not sure if WebDriver can retrieve pseudo element content or not. I think you would need to use Javascript. 

Below code worked for me:

String script = "return window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelector('#validationError'),':before').getPropertyValue('content')";
JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor)driver;
String content = (String) js.executeScript(script);
System.out.println(content);

This should print:

The information provided is either invalid or incomplete.

Comments

The above code is working for taking single element value. how do take  list of elements for the same id using(validationError) how do we get the list of string from this. can you please explain. Thanks

---

Hi, @There,

Did you face any error while executing your code?

---

String script1 = "return window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelectorAll('.read-content').get("+i+"),':before').getPropertyValue('color')";
after execute this code shows me an error for get()

---

String scriptRead = "return window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelectorAll('.read-content',':before')).getPropertyValue('color')";
String contentRead= ((JavascriptExecutor)this.getDriver()).executeScript("arguments[0];",scriptRead.indexOf(i)).toString();
Is any wrong in this code... it returns null... Appreciate if anyone answer this. Thanks

---

Hey, @There,

Could you please post your error here so that you can resolve your error as soon a possible?