Format string for locators

There are many locators for web elements which are of same kind, only they vary with a small difference in index or string such as 

"//div[@id='one']/span[text()='jack']" and 

"//div[@id='one']/span[text()='john']"

For these web elements we should find a common locator with an input span text.

Let's take an example of a web element,

  
Coffee
  
Tea
  
Milk
  
Soup
  
Soft Drinks

The locator for the above list items 'Soft Drinks' can be represented as below:

private final String DRINK_ITEM = "ul#drinks li:nth-of-type(5)";// using CSS selector
or
private final String DRINK_ITEM = "//ul[@id='drinks']/li[5]";// using Xpath

For finding 5th 'li' item we can directly use the above locator, but when we want to use 2nd 'li' item or some other item or all 'li' items at a time, then we need to represent the locator in a common way.

• By direct use: 

For a list item,

WebElement element= driver.findElement(By.xpath(DRINK_ITEM));
element.doSomething();

Or, for all list items,

for (int i = 1; i < count; i++) {
 WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//ul[@id='drinks']/li[" + i + "]"));
 element.doSomething();
}

• By formatting the locator:

For a list item,

String drinkItem = String.format(DRINK_ITEM, 5);
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.xpath(drinkItem));
element.doSomething();

For multiple list items,

for (int i = 1; i < count; i++) {
 String drinkItem = String.format(DRINK_ITEM, i);
 WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.xpath(drinkItem));
 element.doSomething();
}

If you are still not clear about how to use format string, please see the below examples:

private final String GRID_TABLE_VIEW = "div#panel2content div.table.%s";
private final String RESULT_TABLE_VIEW = "//div[@id='panel1content']//div[%d]/span[text()='%s']";
private final String SPACE_TOGGLE_MENU_OPTION = "ul#spacing_toggle li:nth-of-type(%d)";

String gridTableView = String.format(GRID_TABLE_VIEW, "filterByName");
String resultTableView = String.format(RESULT_TABLE_VIEW, 2, "bill");
String spaceToggleMenuOption = String.format(SPACE_TOGGLE_MENU_OPTION, 3);

/** It will print "div#panel2content div.table.filterByName" */
System.out.println(gridTableView);

/** It will print "//div[@id='panel1content']//div[2]/span[text()='bill']" */
System.out.println(resultTableView);

/** It will print "ul#spacing_toggle li:nth-of-type(3)" */
System.out.println(spaceToggleMenuOption);