Misleading error on using XCUITest to select a non-existant attribute

The problem

While crafting selectors to work through a smartphone app, I was exploring my options for selecting a certain element, and generated the error I document below.

I was trying to select the enabled attribute, although value was the correct choice. That isn’t the bug report, though - I suspect that the log I’m attaching highlights some crash or other underlying issue. Either way I think the error message is confusing and opaque - our iOS developer told me it’s the sort of error that should be caught at compile time, happening due to misconfiguration.

In the example I am using aoeuasdf as the example selector. The issue I am reporting here is that the error message that results is very opaque, and possibly shows some underlying issue with the server. In the specific example of the Python driver, something like a KeyError would been more helpful.

Environment

• Appium version: 1.6.0-beta3
• Desktop OS/version used to run Appium: OSX
• Node.js version (unless using Appium.app|exe): v7.0.0
• Mobile platform/version under test: iOS 10.1 on iPhone 6S
• Real device or emulator/simulator: Real device
• Appium CLI or Appium.app|exe: Python driver

Link to Appium logs

https://gist.github.com/emil-petersen/5406e77d1c767a369de7168af8d4e2e4

Code To Reproduce Issue [ Good To Have ]

Using the Python driver:

things = driver.find_elements_by_xpath(
    '//XCUIElementTypeTable/XCUIElementTypeCell/XCUIElementTypeSwitch')
dictionary['things'] = [
  (source.get_attribute('name'), source.get_attribute('aoeuasdf')) for source in
  things if source.get_attribute('name')]

[mykola-mokhnach]

@emil-petersen I’m currently working on setting rules for elements attributes. In general, this starts with https://github.com/facebook/WebDriverAgent/pull/379 PR and then I plan to standardise available properties for all other external accessors, like getAttribute. This standardisation is based on FBElement protocol

[lock[bot]]

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