Selenium-Java Webdriver: I am getting error as Element should have been "select" but was "input" when i select the value form dropdown box

Question

Error message "Element should have been "select" but was "input""is shown when i select the value form drop down box. I have tried with selectByValue() amd selectByIndex().

HTML:

<div class="rcbScroll rcbWidth" style="width: 100%; overflow: auto; height: 40px;">
<ul class="rcbList" style="list-style:none;margin:0;padding:0;zoom:1;">
<li class="rcbItem">TIN</li>
<li class="rcbHovered">SSN</li>
</ul>
</div>

java code is:

Select select=new Select(driver.findElement(By.xpath(OR.getProperty("SSN"))));
select.selectByValue("SSN");

• Abhishek Singh: The above code will only work with <select> tag. I cannot find any <select> tag in the above code ?
• Adnan Ghaffar: i have tried with selectByValue() but nothing :(
• Arran: The error is pretty self-explanatory. You are attempting to use the Select class to manipulate a ul element (unordered list). This isn't possible merely because the Select class was created and is used for select (i.e dropdowns) elements only. I fear you are using a web application that styles the list to make it look like a dropdown, thus giving the illusion it is -> but it is clear this is not an ordinary dropdown.
• Amith: you can refer this for more info on this topic

Answer 1

You can apply select to select value from drop down, there is an li element there and you try to implement using select thats why it thrown the exception

Answer 2

Yo can Select element by following method

driver.findElement(By.xpath(OR.getProperty("SSN")).click();

In Next line select desired drop down in following way :

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//li[text() = 'SSN']")).click();

Answer 3

This error message...

Element should have been "select" but was "input"

...implies that you have tried to select the value through an instance of Select object where as the desired element was not a part of any <select> parent tag.

As per the HTML you have shared to click on the option with text as SSN you can use the following code block :

driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@class='rcbScroll rcbWidth']")).click();
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@class='rcbScroll rcbWidth']/ul//li[@class='rcbHovered' and contains(.,'SSN')]")).click();

Answer 4

Select by will not work for you cuz you need select tag with options tags as sub tags for it. Bellow html code is the correct format you need for using Selenium Select.

<select some-label-name="display label" name="some name" id="some id" title="some title" class="class name">
<option value="0">display label</option>
<option value="1" selected="1">1</option>
<option value="2">2</option>
<option value="3">3</option>
</select>

To solve your problem you need to click on the dropdown list to open options then click on the option you need.