Webdriver in Python - Executing External JavaScript

Question

I like to execute a JavaScript in webdriver in python. Unfortunately they way I try to implement it does not work. How can I correctly do it?

The respective documentary states: (http://selenium-python.readthedocs.org/en/latest/api.html)

driver.execute_script(‘document.title’)

So I wrote the following python code:

driver = webdriver.Firefox() 
driver.get("http://google.com")
driver.execute_script("./hello_world.js") 
driver.quit()

With the respective hello_world.js within the same directory:

alert('Hello, World!')

Yet, unfortunately it yields a Message syntax error:

Log:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/sinonJS_test.py", line 44, in <module>
 sinon_test()
 File "/sinonJS_test.py", line 35, in sinon_test
 driver.execute_script("./hello_world.js")
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 401, in execute_script
{'script': script, 'args':converted_args})['value']
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/webdriver.py", line 173, in execute
 self.error_handler.check_response(response)
 File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/selenium/webdriver/remote/errorhandler.py", line 166, in check_response
raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace)
selenium.common.exceptions.WebDriverException: Message: syntax error
Stacktrace:
 at handleEvaluateEvent (http://google.com:68:11)

Solution attemps: 1) Tried to permute hello_world.js file path description, like adding/removing file suffix, adding/removing absolute file path. Not working.

Note: Indeed I researched several answered threads to similar questions here on SO, yet none of them appeared to solve my problem. E.g. some involving only very small scripts solved the issue by stating the JavaScript as a string within the actual python code. This is not a not an option to me, as I nee to execute bigger more complex JavaScripts (Sinon Fake Timers).

Like this one: Selenium Webdriver: execute_script can't execute custom methods and external javascript files

Answer 1

You need to give a string containing javascript as argument to driver.execute_script. In your case if you want to execute a script written inside a file, just read the file and execute that. Like this

driver.execute_script(open("./hello_world.js").read())

with appropriate location of hello_world.js

Hope this helps.

• John Slathon: Perfect answer. Thanks for your help Sainath! I will post a follow up question later this day regarding the use of a specific script. Maybe you want to watch out for it.
• Sainath Motlakunta: Ok I will be happy to help. Can you comment here once you post?
• John Slathon: It took me a bit longer as I wanted to try solving the problem myself. But now I need help calling a function in a JavaScript: stackoverflow.com/questions/27410655/…