As the title states, I would like to programmatically retrieve properties of matched elements in Detox. I know Detox sees them, because as we all infamously know when a toBeVisible expectation fails by the 75% view rule (a built in Detox opinion for the uninitated), we can see what detox 'got', usually it is a message something like this:
Got: "ReactTextView{id=13725, visibility=VISIBLE, width=376, height=102, has-focus=false, has-focusable=false, has-window-focus=true, is-clickable=false, is-enabled=true, is-focused=false, is-focusable=false, is-layout-requested=false, is-selected=false, layout-params=android.view.ViewGroup$LayoutParams@ac227fb, tag=PROFILE_NAME_TEXT, root-is-layout-requested=false, has-input-connection=false, x=486.0, y=120.0, text=Anonymous, input-type=0, ime-target=false, has-links=false}"
So we have things like the width, height, focus and so on.
My question is, how can we get at these properties programmatically? Specifically, I have an element that is expanding after a button tap and I want to be sure the height is larger than it was before.
If you check the methods available for element(by.id("SOME_ID")), there are only action methods available...
I've finally discovered the answer which was hard to find initial due to missing typings of detox at the time. Properties like height and width that I mentioned are available through getAttributes() method:
const attributes = await element(by.text('Tap Me')).getAttributes();
expect(attributes.text).toBe('Tap Me');
const multipleMatchedElements = await element(by.text('Multiple')).getAttributes();
expect(multipleMatchedElements.elements.length).toBe(5);
expect(multipleMatchedElements.elements[0].identifier).toBe('FirstElement');
The available properties vary between Android and iOS as well. See the documentation in the library for getAttributes(), and the pull request on detox which adds all the types.