How to do it...

Here, we will create a test that finds an element and then retrieves text from the element in a string variable. We will verify the contents of this string for correctness using the following code:

@Test
public void testElementText() {
  // Get the message Element
  WebElement message = driver.findElement(By.id("message"));

  // Get the message elements text
  String messageText = message.getText();

  // Verify message element's text displays "Click on me and my
  // color will change"
  assertEquals("Click on me and my color will change",
    messageText);

  // Get the area Element
  WebElement area = driver.findElement(By.id("area"));

  // Verify area element's text displays "Div's Text\nSpan's Text"
  assertEquals("Div's Text\nSpan's Text", area.getText());
}

How it works...

The getText() method of the WebElement interface returns the visible innerText of the element, including sub-elements, without any leading or trailing whitespace.

If the element has child elements, the value of the innerText attribute of the child elements will also be returned along with the parent element. In the following example, we have a <span> element within a <div> element. While we are retrieving innerText from the <div> element it also appends innerText of the <span> element:

// Get the area Element
WebElement area = driver.findElement(By.id("area"));

// Verify element's text displays "Div's Text\nSpan's Text"
assertEquals("Div's Text\nSpan's Text",area.getText());

There's more...

The WebElement.getText() method does not work on hidden or invisible elements. Retrieval of text from such elements is possible through the getAttribute() method using the innerText or textContent attributes:

assertEquals("Div's Text\nSpan's Text",area.getAttribute("innerText"));

The innerText attribute is not supported in Firefox and the textContent attribute is not supported in Internet Explorer.

See also