Question

What is the difference between findElement and findElements in Selenium Webdriver

Answer 1

Hi Nilaabh, Selenium Webdriver uses findElement and findElements methods to find locators of any web element. Now the difference between them is that the findElement command takes in the By object as the parameter and returns an object of type WebElement. 

By object in turn can be used with various locator strategies such as ID, Name, Class Name, XPATH etc. This method throws exception NoSuchElementException if there are no elements matching the locator. Following is the syntax of findElement command in Selenium web driver:

WebElement elementName = driver.findElement(By.LocatorStrategy("LocatorValue"));

While, findElements command takes in By object as the parameter and returns a list of web elements. It returns an empty list if there are no elements found using the given locator strategy and locator value. Returns an empty list if there are no web elements matching the locator strategy. Below is the syntax of findElements command:

List<WebElement> elementName = driver.findElements(By.LocatorStrategy("LocatorValue"));

Answer 2

FindElement Command -This method locates for the first web element on the current web page matching the criteria mentioned as parameter.  If the web element is not found, it will throw an exception - NoSuchElementException 

Syntax - findElement(By arg0):WebElement - WebDriver

Command - driver.findElement(By.xpath("Xpath location"));

FindElements Command - This method locates all the web elements on the current web page matching the criteria mentioned as parameter.   If not found any WebElement on current page as per given element locator mechanism, it will return empty list.        Syntax - findElements (By arg0):List<WebElement>