Rails - Oct 2010 - Is there a way to use xpath to check for an empty string text value in an element? (Cucumber/Capybara/Selenium)

I have the following Cucumber step where I am trying to verify that the
value of this element is empty, i.e. no characters:

     Then I should see "" within the "dominant_occiput"
selector cell


It hits the following custom step where I am using XPath to focus in on the
element, of course this step also should accept text and also match on that
value:

Then /^I should see "([^\"]*)" within the
"([^\"]*)" selector cell$/ do
|text, id|
    msg = "No selector_cell found with the content of
''#{text}'' and id of
#{id}"
    assert page.find(:xpath,"//*[@id=''#{id}'' and
contains(concat(''
'',normalize-space(@class),'' ''),''
selector_cell '') and text()=''#{(text)}'']",
:visible => true)
end

Is there a way to do this? I see some writing online that XPath does not
recognize ''empty'' situations. Is this true/and/or is there a
better way?

Thanks,

David

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why arent you using "should not see" with a regular expression for any
character? it does take regex.
i havent test this but it looks closer than what you are trying to do.

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On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 9:52 PM, radhames brito
<rbritom-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> why arent you using "should not see" with a regular expression
for any
> character? it does take regex.
> i havent test this but it looks closer than what you are trying to do.
>
Oh man, you are right. Originally I had a method only looking for certain
text within a certain class - ''selector_cell''. Then when I
added the id to
the function I forgot about the original web step.
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glad i could help.

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