[ Selenium 2.0 | WebDriver | Best practices ] Clear input element's value

Purpose

Clear value of HTML input element.

It should work successfully for browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari.

Code sample

    protected void clearInput(WebElement webElement) {

        // isIE() - just checks is it IE or not - use your own implementation

        if (isIE() && "file".equals(webElement.getAttribute("type"))) {

            // workaround

            // if IE and input's type is file - do not try to clear it.

            // If you send:

            // - empty string - it will find file by empty path

            // - backspace char - it will process like a non-visible char

            // In both cases it will throw a bug.
            // 

            // Just replace it with new value when it is need to.

        } else {

            // if you have no StringUtils in project, check value still empty yet

            while (!StringUtils.isEmpty(webElement.getAttribute("value"))) {

                // "\u0008" - is backspace char

                webElement.sendKeys("\u0008");

            }

        }

    }

Notes

As for me, standard webElement.clear() doesn't work for all browsers. Commonly, it could not clear value and throws bug that element is not able to be clean:

Caused by: org.openqa.selenium.InvalidElementStateException: Element must not be hidden, disabled or read-only