Why Does Selenium Throw an InvalidSelectorException with 'span:contains('Control panel')'?

Selenium InvalidSelectorException with "span:contains('Control panel')"

Attempting to find an element using the CSS selector "span:contains('Control panel')" in Selenium Python may result in an InvalidSelectorException. This error occurs because the "contains" pseudo-class is not recognized by Firefox or Chrome.

The CSS specification does not include the ":contains" pseudo-class. As such, it is unsupported by browsers that adhere to the standard. Additionally, WebDriver does not support the "Sizzle" selector engine, which allowed for the use of ":contains" in Selenium 1.0.

Alternative Solutions

Instead of ":contains", consider using attributes of the tag to identify the element:

element = "span[attribute_name=attribute_value]"

Alternatively, use XPath expressions:

• 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']")

Using jQuery

jQuery provides a workaround:

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

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