I need to edit some readonly fields with Selenium WebDriver in Java. As Selenium won't let me even find this fields I searched for solutions and found that the easiest might be to remove the readonly attribute using a JavaScript snippet with the JavaScript Executor.

While this snippet works from the Firefox console, successfully removing the attribute from all inputs, it throws an exception in Selenium.

JavaScript executor:

((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
    "var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');​​​​"+
    "for(var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++)"+
        "inputs[i].removeAttribute('readonly','readonly');​​​​"
);

And the error returned:

Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: illegal character

Command duration or timeout: 51 milliseconds

UPDATE:

The same error appears if I leave only the first JS command:

((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
    "var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');​​​​");

The rest of the stack trace is not relevant for this. Anyone knows how to fix this, or another way to edit the readonly fields?

I need to edit some readonly fields with Selenium WebDriver in Java. As Selenium won't let me even find this fields I searched for solutions and found that the easiest might be to remove the readonly attribute using a JavaScript snippet with the JavaScript Executor.

While this snippet works from the Firefox console, successfully removing the attribute from all inputs, it throws an exception in Selenium.

JavaScript executor:

((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
    "var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');​​​​"+
    "for(var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++)"+
        "inputs[i].removeAttribute('readonly','readonly');​​​​"
);

And the error returned:

Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: illegal character

Command duration or timeout: 51 milliseconds

UPDATE:

The same error appears if I leave only the first JS command:

((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
    "var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');​​​​");

The rest of the stack trace is not relevant for this. Anyone knows how to fix this, or another way to edit the readonly fields?

• java
• javascript
• firefox
• selenium
• selenium-webdriver

3 Answers 3

I was not able to find the issue with your code. But in the meantime use the code given below.

List<WebElement> inputs = driver.findElements(By.tagName("input"));

for (WebElement input : inputs) {
    ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
                "arguments[0].removeAttribute('readonly','readonly')",input);
}

Let me know if this helps you.

Apparently there was a very funky character being put into your string.. as I was using my <- and -> arrow keys, it was getting caught for three characters at the end, and in the middle of the string. Seems to be some copy-pasta issue.

I fixed it just be putting it one one line, however I would still recommend going with @lost's answer as it's more explicit.

@Config(url="https://rawgithub.com/ddavison/so-tests/master/22711441.html", browser= Browser.CHROME)
public class _22711441 extends AutomationTest {
    @Test
    public void test() {
        ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript(
        // the issue was happening                          \/ here and                                                                             \/ here
        "var inputs = document.getElementsByTagName('input');for(var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++){inputs[i].removeAttribute('readonly','readonly');}"
        );

        setText(By.id("1"), "something")
        .validateText(By.id("1"), "something");
    }
}

See the script here and the page i used to test here

WebElement elementName = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//div[@arid='7']//input[@id='arid7']"));
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("arguments[0].removeAttribute('readonly','readonly')", elementName);

This worked for me