How to Handle iframes using Selenium WebDriver ?

This article will present you with a complete idea about handle iframes using Selenium WebDriver. iFrame in Selenium Webdriver is a web page or an inline frame ,which is embedded in another web page or an HTML document .

We will learn below topics in this article

What is an iframe?

- The <iframe> tag defines an inline frame.
- So An inline frame is used to embed another html document within the current HTML document.
- An iframe tag is defined <iframe></iframe> tags.

Below is the example which shows two inline frame/ document within the current page.

<html>
<body>
<h1>iframe Example</h1>
<iframe src="https://tutorialshut.com/" width="100%" height="300">
</iframe>
<iframe src="https://tutorialshut.com/" width="100%" height="300">
</iframe>
</body>
</html>

How to Identify a Frame on a Page?

Right-click on the element and If you find an option like This Frame, view Frame source then it shows the page includes frames below is the example-

Second method to find the iframe is , Right-click on the page and click on View Page Source ,Search ‘iframe’ tag and if it is mound , means the page has iframes.

How to find total number of iFrames on a webpage?

Below are few approaches used to find iframes on a web page

1)Using tag name

List  framesList =driver.findElements(By.tagName("iframe")).size()
int numOfFrames = framesList.size();

2) using xpath

List  framesList = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//iframe"));
int numOfFrames = frameList.size();

How to switch to Frames by Index?

Lets say A webpage consists 2 iframes then index will start from 0 and then 1 respectively.

so first iframe has index 0 and second iframe has 1

Syntax –

driver.switchTo().frame(int index);

Below example shows how to switch to first iframe

public static void main(String[] args) {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");
driver = new ChromeDriver();

driver.get("URL which has iframe");
//Switch to first iframe using index
driver.switchTo().frame(0);
driver.close();
}

How to switch to Frames by Name

if you look at the html code for iFrame in the web page then sometimes you can find the name attribute. We can switch to that iFrame using the name. Below is the syntax for this.

Syntax:

driver.switchTo().frame(“framename”);

Example-

public static void main(String[] args) {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");
driver = new ChromeDriver();

driver.get("URL which has iframe");
//Switch to first iframe using name
driver.switchTo().frame(“name attribute of iframe”);
driver.close();
}

How to switch to Frame by ID

IF iframe consist Id attribute by looking at the html of Iframe then We can switch to that iFrame using the id .Below is the syntax for this.

Syntax:

driver.switchTo().frame(“id”);

Example:

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");

driver = new ChromeDriver();

driver.get("URL which has iframe");

//Switch to first iframe using ID

driver.switchTo().frame(“id attribute of iframe”);

driver.close();

}

How to switch to Frame by WebElement

We can switch to an iframe by finding an element using any of the locator strategies and then passing it to the switchTo command.

Syntax:

driver.switchTo().frame(“webElement”);

Example:

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");

driver = new ChromeDriver();

driver.get("URL which has iframe");

//Switch to first iframe using WebElement

driver.switchTo().frame(“iframe webElement”);

driver.close();

}

How to switch Back to Main Frame

Suppose a main web page consists of two iframes and we have switched into one of the inner iframes .

Now if we want to switch back to main web page or parent page then we can switch to main page using below command

Syntax-

driver.switchTo().defaultContent().
               OR
driver.switchTo().parentFrame():

SCENARIO

Let’s consider a web page which has two iframes , one is the outer iframe and other iframe is inside the outer frame.

1. Open chrome browser
2. Navigate to URL containing iframes
3. Find total number of frames in the web page
4. Switching the Outer Frame and print the text inside outer frame
5. Find and print the total number of frames inside outer frame
6. Switch to inner frame and print the text inside outer frame
7. Switch back to the outer frame
8. Close the browser

Code implementation

package com.test;

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class HandleFrames {

	public static WebDriver driver;

	public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {

		// Create a new instance of the Chrome driver

		System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "D:\\Drivers\\chromedriver.exe");
		driver = new ChromeDriver();

		driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

		// Launch the URL
		driver.get("URL containing iframes");

		driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

		int size = driver.findElements(By.tagName("iframe")).size();
		
                            // prints the total number of frames in the web page
		System.out.println("Total no of Frames --" + size);

		// Switching the Outer Frame
		driver.switchTo().frame(0); 
		
		// Printing the text in outer frame
		System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.xpath("xpath of the outer element ")).getText());

		// prints the total number of frames inside outer frame
		size = driver.findElements(By.tagName("iframe")).size();
		System.out.println("Total Frames --" + size);
		
		driver.switchTo().frame(0); // Switching to inner frame
		// Printing the text in inner frame
		System.out.println(driver.findElement(By.xpath("xpath of the inner element ")).getText());

		driver.switchTo().defaultContent();
                             driver.close();

	}
}

About Author

Nitesh Kumar Shukla

Nitesh is working as a Quality Analyst with more than 10 years of comprehensive experience in test automation, performance testing , DevOps etc .He likes to share his wealth of knowledge across software test Process

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