The Locator Class

In the latest Codeception 1.1.4 new Locator class was introduced. Basically it should simplify your life in writing complex XPath or CSS locators. Right now it has minimal, yet useful functionality.

Combine

Locator can combine two locators using OR operand:

<?php
use \Codeception\Util\Locator;

$I->see('Title', Locator::combine('h1','h2','h3'));
?>

This will search for Title text in either h1, h2, or h3 tag. You can also combine CSS selector with XPath locator:

<?php
use \Codeception\Util\Locator;

$I->fillField(Locator::combine('form input[type=text]','//form/textarea[2]'), 'qwerty');
?>

As a result the Locator will produce a mixed XPath value that will be used in fillField action.

tabIndex

Do you often use the TAB key to navigate through the web page? How do your site respond to this navigation? You could try to match elements by their tab position using tabIndex method of Locator class.

<?php
use \Codeception\Util\Locator;

$I->fillField(Locator::tabIndex(1), 'davert');
$I->fillField(Locator::tabIndex(2) , 'qwerty');
$I->click('Login');
?>

href

Does the page contain link wo specified URL? Check that easily with href method of Locator class.

<?php
use \Codeception\Util\Locator;

$I->see('Log In', Locator::href('/login.php'));
?>

And that’s all folks for today. We are sure the locator class will evolve to simplify writing complex locators. If you have ideas what methods should be added, post them here. Or, which is better, patch this class and send Pull Request to Github.