What s the difference between functions getClass and getAttribute class in Selenium

Question

Kindly check this code

`<div class="datepicker dropdown-menu" style="display: block; top: 301px; left: 308px;">
<div class="datepicker-days" style="display: block;">
<div class="datepicker-months" style="display: none;">
<div class="datepicker-years" style="display: none;">
</div>`

I'm trying get the classname of Divs present inside Div with classname(datepicker dropdown-menu") but it work with  wdriver.getAttribute("class").toString(); and not with wdriver.getclass().toString();. Can anybody tell me what is the difference?

Answer 1

The simple difference is that, getClass() returns the XPath of the webelement. Whereas, getAttribute("class") will return the value of the class attribute within the <div> tags. Look at the code below to understand this concept better.

    WebElement ele = driver.findElement(By.xpath(".//*[@id='next']"));
    String a = ele.getAttribute("class");
    System.out.println(a);
    string b = ele.getClass();
    System.out.println(b);

And if the html code was this:-

<input id="next" class="rc-button rc-button-submit" type="submit" value="Next" name="signIn"/>

Then, a will return: "rc-button rc-button-submit". Whereas, b will return: ".//*[@id='next']"

Hope the explanation was clear.