Iterate over links in a web page

Let's suppose you have a web page that contains a series of links. You would like to create a script that sequentially clicks each link.

You can record a script by manually clicking each link.

Alternatively, you can accomplish this task dynamically using one of the methods in this topic.

In this topic:

Use a parameter and a For Loop statement

You can use a parameter and a For Loop step to automatically iterate over links in your TruClient script.

Try it out!

The following table summarizes the pages and scripts used in the example:

Example description	HTML pages	Page Description	Example scripts
Iterate over links in a Web page	links.html empty.html	List of links Landing page	Links1_2020.zip

1. Add a parameter to your script ("LinkText") and create entries for each link name. For details on creating parameters, see Use parameters to vary arguments.

2. Record navigation to links.html.

3. Add a For Loop step to your script and set the i variable to the number of links on your page. In this example, i is set to 9.

4. Record the following steps into the For Loop:

   1. Add an Evaluate JavaScript step. Expand Arguments, and in the Code dropdown box enter the following code using the JavaScript editor .

      ArgsContext.linkText = ArgsContext.TC.getParam("LinkText");

   2. Click Link 1 - this is an example.

   3. Click the Back to Links page button.

   4. Stop recording.

5. In the Object section, change the ID method on the Link 1 - this is an example from Automatic to JavaScript.

6. Add the following code to the JavaScript text under the Object section:

   evalXPath("//li[text()=\"" + ArgsContext.linkText + "\"]");

   Note: ArgsContext enables you to refer to arguments defined outside the argument section. For details, see Working with the ArgsContext object.

7. Replay the script.

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Use the XPath property, JavaScript and a For Loop step

You can also use the For Loop step, the XPath property, and JavaScript to develop a script section that dynamically clicks links in a script.

Try it out!

The following table summarizes the pages and scripts used in the example:

Example description	HTML pages	Page Description	Example scripts
Iterate over links in a Web page	links.html empty.html	List of links Landing page	Links2_2020.zip

1. Record navigation to links.html.

2. Add a For Loop step to your script and set the i variable to the number of links on your page. In this example, i is set to 0. Init value is set to 1.

3. Record the following steps into the For Loop:

   1. Click Link 1 - this is an example.
   2. Click the Back to Links page button.
4. Change the ID method on the Link 1 - this is an example from Automatic to JavaScript.

5. Add the following code to the JavaScript text under the Object section:

   evalXPath("//li[text()=\"Link " + ArgsContext.i + " - this is an example\"]");

   TruClient evaluates the statements and then runs an XPath query on the DOM to find any list item with text equals to the value fetched from parameter “LinkText”

   Note: ArgsContext enables you to refer to arguments defined outside the argument section. For details, see Working with the ArgsContext object.

6. Replay the script.

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Use the XPath DOM Structure, JavaScript and a For Loop step

You can also use the For Loop step, the XPath DOM structure, and JavaScript to develop a script section that dynamically clicks links in a script.

Try it out!

The following table summarizes the pages and scripts used in the example:

Example description	HTML pages	Page Description	Example scripts
Iterate over links in a Web page	links.html empty.html	List of links Landing page	Links3_2020.zip

1. Record navigation to links.html.

2. Add a For Loop step to your script and set the i variable to the number of links on your page. In this example, i is set to 0. Init value is set to 1.

3. Record the following steps into the For Loop:

   1. Click Link 1 - this is an example.
   2. Click the Back to Links page button.
4. Change the ID method on the Link 1 - this is an example from Automatic to JavaScript.

5. Add the following code to the JavaScript text under the Object section:

   evalXPath("//html/body/ul/li[" + ArgsContext.i + "]/a");

   TruClient evaluates the statements and then run XPath query on the DOM to find any list item with text equals to the value fetched from parameter “LinkText”

6. Replay the script.

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Use descriptors

You can use descriptors and the object ordinal feature to automatically iterate over links in a Web page in your TruClient script.

Try it out!

The following table summarizes the pages and scripts used in the example:

Example description	HTML pages	Page Description	Example scripts
Iterate over links in a Web page	links.html empty.html	List of links Landing page	Links4_2020.zip

1. Record navigation to links.html.

2. Add a For Loop step to your script and set the i variable to the number of links on your page. In this example, i is set to 0. Init value is set to 1.

3. Record the following steps into the For Loop:

   1. Click Link 1 - this is an example.
   2. Click the Back to Links page button.
4. Change the ID method on the Link 1 - this is an example from Automatic to Descriptors.
5. Click the Edit button to open the Descriptors Editor.
6. Change the operator of the text property from "equals" to "equalsIgnoreDigits". This forces TruClient to ignore the digits while searching for the DOM object.

7. From the Descriptors editor, select the object ordinal JS instead of plain text. Enter the following code:

   ArgsContext.i

   

8. Replay the script.

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