Both Locator and ElementHandle are key concepts in Playwright for dealing with web page elements, but they have significantly different purposes.
Locator:
A Locator in Playwright is a way to find and interact with elements on a web page. It represents a selector that can be used to locate one or multiple elements. Once you have a Locator object, you can use it to perform actions like clicking, filling input fields, or getting the text of the element. Locators are typically used in Playwright’s page object model for cleaner and more maintainable tests.
When you perform actions using a Locator, Playwright automatically waits for the element to be present in the DOM before interacting with it. This helps in handling asynchronous content loading.
Example:
ElementHandle:
An ElementHandle in Playwright represents a handle to a DOM element on a web page. It is a reference to the actual element and provides methods to interact with the element, such as clicking, typing, or evaluating properties.
You can evaluate functions or properties within the context of an ElementHandle. This is useful for extracting data from the element.
Example:
Both Locator and ElementHandle are powerful ways in Playwright, and choosing the right one depends on your use case. Use Locator to find elements in a clean and readable way, and then interact with the matched elements using ElementHandle to perform actions, extract data, or evaluate properties. This separation of concerns enhances the readability and maintainability of your Playwright tests.