How to pass a value to the index during runtime for the indexed_property?

Question

How to pass a value to the index during runtime for the indexed_property?

616 Views Asked by mkum At 03 April 2025 at 18:09

I have multiple sets of select_list and check boxes with the same properties. While I can differentiate them using index => 0, index => 1 and so on, is there a way to achieve this using an indexed_property?

When I tried:

indexed_property(:my_index_prop, 
  [[:select_list, :my_select, {:name => 'my_select',:index => '%d'}],
  [:checkbox,     :my_check,  {:name => 'my_check',:index => '%d'}]]
)

It resulted in the error 'expected fixnum got string "0"'.

If indexed_property cannot be used, is there a way to pass the index during runtime and identify an element? For example:

for cnt in 0 .. 6
  # identify element using index
end

Original Q&A

There are 1 best solutions below

**Justin Ko** · Accepted Answer

The problem is that the Page-Object is sending the :index value as a String when Watir-WebDriver requires the :index value to be a number.

Solution 1 - Use Element Collections

Given that you are only using the indexed property to specify the :index locator, you could define element collections instead.

Assuming that your page is something like:

<html>
  <body>
    <select name="my_select" id="0"></select>
    <input name="my_check" id="a" type="checkbox">

    <select name="my_select" id="1"></select>
    <input name="my_check" id="b" type="checkbox">

    <select name="my_select" id="2"></select>
    <input name="my_check" id="c" type="checkbox"> 
  </body>
</html>

You could define the page object as:

class MyPage
  include PageObject

  select_lists(:my_index_prop_select_list, :name => 'my_select')
  checkboxes(:my_index_prop_checkbox, :name => 'my_check')
end

The two element collections are arrays, meaning you can specify the index by using the [] method:

page = MyPage.new(browser)
p page.my_index_prop_select_list_elements[1].attribute('id')
#=> "1"
p page.my_index_prop_checkbox_elements[1].attribute('id')
#=> "b"

The problem with this solution is that you do not get the benefit of the different accessor methods.

Solution 2 - Use XPath

Another option would be to use the :xpath locator with the indexed_property:

class MyPage
  include PageObject

  indexed_property(:my_index_prop, [
    [:select_list, :my_select, {:xpath => '//select[@name="my_select"][%s + 1]'}],
    [:checkbox, :my_check, {:xpath => '//input[@type="checkbox"][@name="my_check"][%s + 1]'}] 
  ])  
end

The benefit of this is that you get the usual accessor methods created:

page = MyPage.new(browser)
p page.my_index_prop[1].my_select_element.attribute('id')
#=> "1"
p page.my_index_prop[1].my_check_element.attribute('id')
#=> "b"    
page.my_index_prop[1].check_my_check
p page.my_index_prop[1].my_check_checked?
#=> true

The disadvantage here is that you have to write XPaths, which is not a big deal when it is simple.

Solution 3 - Modify Page-Object

Lastly, you could modify the Page-Object gem to turn the :index into a number before passing it to Watir. This can be done by adding the monkey-patch:

class PageObject::IndexedProperties::RowOfElements
  def initialize (browser, index, identifier_list)
    initialize_browser(browser)

    identifier_list.each do |identifier|
      type = identifier[0]
      name = identifier[1]
      how_and_what = identifier[2].clone # Cannot modify the original...
      how_and_what.each do |key, value|
        if key == :index
          how_and_what[key] = (value % index).to_i
        else
          how_and_what[key] = value % index
        end
      end
      self.class.send type, name, how_and_what unless self.class.instance_methods.include? name
    end
  end
end

This would allow the page object to be defined as expected:

class MyPage
  include PageObject

  indexed_property(:my_index_prop, [
    [:select_list, :my_select, {:name => 'my_select', :index => '%d'}],
    [:checkbox, :my_check, {:name => 'my_check', :index => '%d'}]
  ])
end

Which is used the same as the prior solution:

page = MyPage.new(browser)
p page.my_index_prop[1].my_select_element.attribute('id')
#=> "1"
p page.my_index_prop[1].my_check_element.attribute('id')
#=> "b"    
page.my_index_prop[1].check_my_check
p page.my_index_prop[1].my_check_checked?
#=> true

The disadvantage of course is that you have to patch the Page-Object gem. Though you could request the change be made to the project.

How to pass a value to the index during runtime for the indexed_property?

There are 1 best solutions below

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