getText() returns empty string after sendKeys()

Question

I have a class with the following public instance variable

@FindBy(id="titleInput")
public WebElement titleInputBox;

Then I use page factory in the constructor to initialize it on every use

PageFactory.initElements(driver, this);

In my test case for this page, I use the following code to test whether the text I sent is actually getting set in the field ...

subtitleInputBox.sendKeys("Test");
subtitleInputBox.getText();

and I get empty string

any idea why this happens ... I think it works fine if driver.findElement() is used directly without @FindBy and PageFactory

Answer 1

To get the text out of an input box like text or textarea you need to use the getAttribute("value") method. getText() works for tags like div, span etc etc.

subtitleInputBox.getAttribute("value");