selenium webdriver select element

Question

I have a select control on my site. I am using page objects to interact with the page. If I do (with the first 2 lines under my class and the `selectByValue` in my method) ``` @FindBy(id="foo") private Select foo; foo.selectByValue("myValue"); ``` It fails with a null pointer. I also tried without the `@FindBy`. Now if I do this in my method it all works fine and selects the correct item ``` Select foo = new Select(sDriver.findElement(By.id("foo"))); foo.selectByValue("myValue"); ``` Here is the actual web snippet for that control (edited to protect the innocent) ``` ``` Let me say that I have a work around for my issue but I don't get why the "normal" path is not working.

Accepted Answer

Thats because the `Select` class has this constructor:

```
Select(WebElement element)
```

See the Javadoc

So if you do something like this:

```
@FindBy(id="foo")
private WebElement wannabeSelect;
Select realSelect = new Select(wannabeSelect);
realSelect.selectByValue("myValue");
```

It should work.

BTW, I am using the same approach as you in the "workaround" because I dont wanna cast new WebElement object when I need Select object. But anyways, the

```
sDriver.findElement(By.id("foo"));
```

returns `WebElement`, so thats why its working. You can also do this:

```
 WebElement wannabeSelect = sDriver.findElement(By.id("foo"));
 Select foo = new Select(wannabeSelect);
```

selenium webdriver select element

Solution

Problem