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rubycucumberwatir-webdriver

Clear input field: undefined method `clear' for #<Watir::Input:XYZ> (NoMethodError)

I am not sure why I can not clear my input field.

PageObject:

element(:test_input_field) { |b| b.input(class: "search-field") }

def set_search_value(search_entry)
  test_input_field.when_present.clear
  test_input_field.when_present.set(search_entry)
end

Step_file:

page.set_search_value(search_entry)

Output:

undefined method `clear' for #'<'Watir::Input:0x00000003980d20'>' (NoMethodError)
Solution

  • The clear (and set) method are not defined for generic input elements - ie Watir::Input. They are only defined for the specific input types - text field, checkbox, etc.

    To make the code work, you would need to convert the input into the more specific type, which is likely a text field. You can do this using the to_subtype method:

    test_input_field.when_present.to_subtype.clear
test_input_field.when_present.to_subtype.set(search_entry)

    As @SaurabhGaur mentions, set already starts by clearing the existing value, so you could just do:

    test_input_field.when_present.to_subtype.set(search_entry)

    Unless the input type changes, it would make more sense to define the element as a text_field so you do not need to convert it. It might depend on which page object library you are using, but I would expect you could do:

    element(:test_input_field) { |b| b.text_field(class: "search-field") }

def set_search_value(search_entry)
  test_input_field.when_present.clear
  test_input_field.when_present.set(search_entry)
end