Writing Locators for Dynamic Elements

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What are Dynamic Elements?

Dynamic elements are web elements whose attributes (id, name, class, etc.) change every time the page reloads or during runtime.
Example:

<input id="username_12345" name="user_6789" />

Here 12345 and 6789 keep changing, making it difficult to locate directly.

🔹 Strategies to Write Locators for Dynamic Elements

1. Use Stable Attributes

• Prefer attributes that do not change (like type, placeholder, aria-label, etc.).

//input[@placeholder='Enter Username']

2. Use Partial Attribute Matching

• XPath contains() or starts-with() helps ignore the dynamic part.

//input[contains(@id, 'username')]

//button[starts-with(@id, 'loginBtn')]

3. Use Relative Locators

• Locate based on nearby stable elements.

//label[text()='Username']/following-sibling::input

4. Index or Position (Last Option)

• If no unique attribute, use position. (Not recommended, but sometimes needed.)

(//input[@type='text'])[2]

5. Use CSS Selectors

• CSS can also handle partial matching.

input[id*='username']
button[id^='loginBtn']

6. Leverage Hierarchy

• Use parent/child relationships.

//div[@class='login-box']//input[@type='password']

7. Dynamic Waits

• Sometimes element is present but not yet stable. Use waits:

  • Selenium: WebDriverWait

  • Playwright: auto-wait

  • Cypress: retry mechanism

Read more:

Handling Dynamic Content

Working with Page Waits and Timeouts

Running Tests in Different Browsers

Configuring playwright.config.ts

Using Playwright Test Runner

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