How to fill a select element which is not embedded

Question

My html code is:

<div class="setting-control">
<select class="on-off" id="custom-cache-pref">
  <option value="">Default</option>
  <option value="byc">Bypass cache</option>
  <option value="basic">Basic caching</option>
  <option value="iqs">Ignore query string</option>
  <option value="agg">Aggressive caching</option>
  <option value="all">Cache everything</option>
</select>
</div>

Usually with casperjs I would use

this.fillSelectors('form[name="formName"]', { 
    'select[id="custom-cache-pref"]': 'byc'                     
}, false);

to select option "byc" but this time the "select" element is not embedded in a form!

How can I choose its value in this case?

Answer 1

Adapted from my answer here, you can create your own function that selects an option by value. This changes the selected index which might not trigger the select onChange event.

casper.selectOptionByValue = function(selector, valueToMatch){
    this.evaluate(function(selector, valueToMatch){
        var select = document.querySelector(selector),
            found = false;
        Array.prototype.forEach.call(select.children, function(opt, i){
            if (!found && opt.value.indexOf(valueToMatch) !== -1) {
                select.selectedIndex = i;
                found = true;
            }
        });
        // dispatch change event in case there is some kind of validation
        var evt = document.createEvent("UIEvents"); // or "HTMLEvents"
        evt.initUIEvent("change", true, true);
        select.dispatchEvent(evt);
    }, selector, valueToMatch);
};

casper.start(url, function() {
    this.selectOptionByValue('select#custom-cache-pref', "byc");
}).run();

Alternative 1

Judging by the code of __utils__.fill() and casper.fillForm(), the selector of the form doesn't necessarily have to be a form. It may be a div:

this.fillSelectors('div.setting-control', { 
    'select[id="custom-cache-pref"]': 'byc'                     
}, false);

Alternative 2

If this still doesn't work, you might need to resort on focusing on the select element in the page context and sending up and down key events to change the value using PhantomJS' page.sendEvent():

this.evaluate(function(){
    document.querySelector('select[id="custom-cache-pref"]').focus();
});
this.page.sendEvent('keypress', this.page.event.key.Down);