Why Does CSS Selector with :contains() Cause \"InvalidSelectorException\" in Selenium Python with Firefox?

Invalid CSS Selector in Selenium Python: "selenium.common.exceptions.InvalidSelectorException with "span:contains('string')""

When using Selenium Python with Firefox, attempting to find an element by CSS selector with the :contains() pseudo-class, such as "span:contains('Control panel')", may result in an "InvalidSelectorException."

Reason:

The :contains() pseudo-class is not supported by Firefox or Chrome. As noted in Issue #987 and #1547, WebDriver opted not to include support for Sizzle-style CSS selectors, which included :contains().

Alternative Solutions:

Instead, consider using any other attribute of the span tag, such as:

element = "span[attribute_name=attribute_value]"

Alternatively, use XPaths based on the DOM tree structure:

• Using text():

  element = my_driver.find_element_by_xpath("//span[text()='Control panel']")

• Using contains():

  element = my_driver.find_element_by_xpath("//span[contains(.,'Control panel')]")

• Using normalize-space():

  element = my_driver.find_element_by_xpath("//span[normalize-space()='Control panel']")

Or, you can leverage jQuery for CSS selectors with :contains():

$('span:contains("Control panel")')

Note: CSS selectors with :contains() are also not supported in the console, but jQuery overwrites document.querySelector with its own implementation, allowing for their use.

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