Handling Web Forms and Buttons

Filling inputs

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
 
 
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
try:
    driver.get("https://httpbin.org/forms/post")
 
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, "custname").send_keys("Alice")
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, "custtel").send_keys("123")
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, "custemail").send_keys("a@example.com")
 
    # submit
    driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "form").submit()
 
    print(driver.title)
finally:
    driver.quit()

Tips

• If .submit() doesn’t work, click a submit button element instead
• Always prefer stable selectors (IDs, name)

How Selenium interacts with a form

A form is a set of elements: text inputs, checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdowns, and buttons. Selenium finds each element and acts on it.

• send_keys("text") types into an input. It appends to what is there, so call clear() first when a field already has a value.
• click() clicks a button, checkbox, or radio button.
• Select(element).select_by_visible_text("Large") chooses a dropdown option. Import it with from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select.
• element.get_attribute("value") and element.text read values back.

form.submit() in the example submits the form directly, but it skips the button's click handlers and any JavaScript that runs on it. On many modern sites that means nothing happens, or the data is wrong. Clicking the real submit button is the safer default.

A fuller example

This fills the practice form at httpbin.org, chooses options, waits for the button, clicks it, and reads the result.

import json
 
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
 
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
try:
    driver.get("https://httpbin.org/forms/post")
    wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 10)
 
    name = wait.until(EC.visibility_of_element_located((By.NAME, "custname")))
    name.clear()
    name.send_keys("Alice")
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, "custtel").send_keys("123")
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, "custemail").send_keys("a@example.com")
 
    driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[name='size'][value='medium']").click()
    driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "input[name='topping'][value='bacon']").click()
 
    submit = wait.until(EC.element_to_be_clickable((By.CSS_SELECTOR, "form button")))
    submit.click()
 
    body = wait.until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.TAG_NAME, "pre"))).text
    print(json.loads(body)["form"]["custname"])
finally:
    driver.quit()

The site echoes the submitted form as JSON in a <pre> element, so the last two lines confirm the data arrived. Waiting for element_to_be_clickable avoids clicking a button that is not ready, which is a common source of ElementNotInteractableException.

Safety

A script that submits forms acts on real systems. Test against a practice site or a test account before pointing it at a real one. Do not automate forms that send messages, place orders, or change data unless you are sure of the effect. Never put passwords in the script. Read them from environment variables. Respect the site's terms, and do not use a script to get around a CAPTCHA.

Common mistakes

• Locating by position or by visible text that changes. Use id or name first.
• Not waiting for the next page after the click, then reading stale content.
• Forgetting clear() on prefilled fields.
• Sending keys to a hidden field, which raises an error.
• Trusting submit() on JavaScript-driven forms.

Check your understanding