Is an empty cell in a table considered 'hidden' ?

Describe the bug I’m testing the visibility of cells in a table. Most of these cells have a value in the cell, and checking visibility of the cell is fine. I encountered a number of empty cells, which all fail the visible check. Like the reproduction script below.

My question: Is this expected behaviour ? I would reason that an empty cell is still visible. If this is expected behaviour, how should I check if cell is available ?

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

*** Settings ***
Library           Browser

*** Test Cases ***
Empty cell of table not Considered visible
    New Browser    browser=chromium headless=false
    New Context
    New Page    https://www.tutorialspoint.com/css/css_empty-cells.htm
    Browser.Wait For Elements State    //table[@class='empty']/tbody/tr[3]/td[2]    visible

Expected behavior See above

Screenshots not applicable

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows
• Browser robotframework 4.30(chromium)

[emakaay]

I expanded the test a little bit, and I can see that visible is checked correctly

`*** Settings *** Library Browser

*** Test Cases *** Empty cell of table not Considered visible New Browser browser=chromium headless=false New Context New Page https://www.tutorialspoint.com/css/css_empty-cells.htm # # Validate values can be read Get Text //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(2) > td:nth-child(2) == value Get Text //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(2) > td:nth-child(3) == value Get Text //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td:nth-child(2) == value Get Text //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td:nth-child(3) ==
# # Validate fields are visible Wait For Elements State //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(2) > td:nth-child(2) visible Wait For Elements State //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(2) > td:nth-child(3) visible Wait For Elements State //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td:nth-child(2) visible Wait For Elements State //html/body/div[1]/div/div[2]/iframe >>> body > table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td:nth-child(3) visible`

I have to look closely at the other tests, to see why they fail. It looks the same. But this issue can be closed

[mkorpela]

Empty cell is in my opinion visible. Empty html elements are used in many ways to visualize shapes etc.