$

The $ command is a short way to call the element command in order to fetch a single element on the page. It returns an object that with an extended prototype to call action commands without passing in a selector. However if you still pass in a selector it will look for that element first and call the action on that element.

Using the wdio testrunner this command is a global variable else it will be located on the browser object instead.

You can chain $ or $$ together in order to walk down the DOM tree.

Usage

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$(selector);

Parameters

Param Type Details
selector String selector to fetch a certain element

Example

index.html
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<ul id="menu">
<li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/">Developer Guide</a></li>
<li><a href="/">API</a></li>
<li><a href="/">Contribute</a></li>
</ul>
$.js
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it('should get text from a menu link', function () {
var text = $('#menu');

console.log(text.$$('li')[2].$('a').getText()); // outputs: "API"
// same as
console.log(text.$$('li')[2].getText('a'));
});