Logical operators (AND &&, OR ||, NOT !) in selectors

[Filip_C]

Hi All,

It would be good to have support for logical operators (and, or, not) in selectors.

Scenario:

• Workflow operating on one application
• There can be multiple windows open at the same time
• One of the windows displays Purchase Orders (can be distinguished by header which can contain contain either “PO” or “Purchase Order”)
• Developer needs to ensure the robot executes actions within the order window

Currently:
two separate element exists actions are required to test both *PO* and *Purchase Order* selectors separately

Proposed:
one selector
*PO*||*Purchase Order*
which would match against both of the scenarios

Please upvote if you’d find that feature useful!

Best Regards,
Filip

[Michael_Udhaya (Udhaya Kumar P)]

Hi @Filip_C, you can use two Element Exist activity to check the selector come with your option.
Use If Condition and navigate to your page.

TanQ,
Michael Udhaya

[Filip_C]

Hi @Michael_Udhaya,

Thanks for your comment !
To be honest, that’s what I meant in Current section

Currently:
two separate element exists actions are required to test both PO and Purchase Order selectors separately

While it most certainly does solve the problem it’s far from perfect (especially when there’s more than two conditions to be met); having these options in selectors would leave more space in the workflow for actual business logic and would make the whole workflow less cluttered

Kind of similar situation to what we’ve had with variables … prior 19.4 we were able to break the selector string and inject a variable and it worked just fine… yet now we have {{variable}} support built into selectors

Best Regards,
Filip

[Filip_C]

Hi @amaresan,

Thank you for your input

Yes, the parallel activity will slightly improve the performance but that’s not the main concern. It would still require jumping through hoops just to check if a header with either or / both and exists

I know most of the time there will be a workaround but at the end of the day we should not need to use workarounds - It’s purely case of readability, maintainability, and developer experience

Best Regards,
Filip

[loginerror (Maciej Kuźmicz)]

Hi @Filip_C

I believe our team is looking at the possibility of allowing regex in selectors. No hard promises on when it will enter Studio though

[Filip_C]

Hi @loginerror,

Thanks for the update
Having RegEx selectors would be a blast!

Cheers,
Filip

[badita (Mihai Badita)]

@gheorghestan

[gheorghestan]

Stay tuned, the RegEx support will be delivered soon. For the beginning you’ll have to manually write the regular expression directly in the selector’s xml string. The UI tools will be updated next year.

For the mentioned case, below is the regex correct syntax you need to use:

(. * PO. * )|(. * Purchase Order. * ) - remove the space before and after each * before usage

Should you have questions, do let me know!

Regards
Gheorghe

[gheorghestan]

thanks

[loginerror (Maciej Kuźmicz)]

Hi @Filip_C

Please check out these topics of recently introduced new features!

#FeatureBlog - 19.10 - Using regular expression (Regex) in the selector attributes

It is now possible to use Regular Expressions in your selectors. Follow this guide to learn how! What’s new? We have added extra syntax to the Selector Editor to allow for advanced configuration of your selectors. Let’s begin As an example, I will be creating a selector that will be able to open a file whose name is dynamically changing. Let’s assume I am receiving daily list of bills via email which are saved as a text file named ‘bills mmddyy.txt’, e.g ‘’bills 101019’. Now, I want to writ…

#FeatureBlog - 19.10 - Using non-greedy search in selectors

What’s new? The Non-Greedy search makes it possible to identify the target element from a pool of similar applications, matching the attributes you specify. Let’s begin As an example, let’s assume I am automating two Calculator applications which are opened simultaneously: [image] I want that my automation spies these two Calculator applications for the entered number 100 in any of them and execute some steps afterwards. Thus, I am using the following selector: [image] With the cu…

#FeatureBlog - 19.10 - Fuzzy string matching for your selectors

What’s new? Fuzzy string matching is a technique to search strings which are not a 100% match and match the specific pattern approximately, rather than exactly. Let’s begin Let’s say I want to create a selector which needs to be resilient to user typos or similar user input with a key work I expect to be entered a search field. First, I have opened up a bing.com in my borwser and searched for ‘uipath certification‘ text: [01] When I get a selector for the input field, the ‘title’ attr…

[Filip_C]

@loginerror,

Nice one! well done!

Cheers,
Filip