powershell IE automation href issue - html

Question

I am trying to access Jtrac webpage using powershell. i am able to login into but i am unable to access SEARCH button which href link.
$Url = “http://kbserver/workflow/app/login”
enter code here`$Username=”XXXXX”
enter code here`$Password=”XXXXX”
$IE = New-Object -com internetexplorer.application;
$IE.visible = $true;
$IE.navigate($Url);
while ($IE.Busy -eq $true)
{
Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 2000;
}
$Login = $IE.document.getElementById("loginName3").value = "$Username"
$Login = $IE.Document.getElementById(“password12”).value= "$Password"
$Login = $IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("input") | where-object {$_.type -eq "submit"}
$Login.click();
while ($IE.Busy -eq $true)
{
Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 5000;
}
$Login = $IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("a") | where {$_.href -eq "'?wicket:interface=:2:table:dashboardRows:3:dashboardRow:search::ILinkListen er::'"}
$Login.click();
Error which i am getting is
You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
At C:\Users\Dinesh\Webbb.ps1:20 char:13
+ $Login.click <<<< ();
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (click:String) [], RuntimeException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvokeMethodOnNull
<a href="?wicket:interface=:2:table:dashboardRows:3:dashboardRow:search::ILinkListener::">
<img title="SEARCH" src="../resources/search.gif"> </a>

Answer 1

It looks like you have a typo in line 19, ILinkListen er:: at the end of your where instead of ILinkListener::. Where isn't finding anything to match, so it returns null, and that's how you get your null-valued $Login object.
Edit: Your problem is still line 19, you should print out $IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("a") and verify that it's actually returning what you expect, because your where filter is not matching anything and returning $null to $Login.
Edit2: went to a website and grabbed all the hrefs and took a look, powershell removes the "" from the hrefs.
you should have $IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("a") | where {$_.href -eq "?wicket:interface=:2:table:dashboardRows:3:dashboardRow:search::ILinkListener::"} instead.
Edit 3: Your second issue can be solved with regex using the -match operator instead of -eq (-eq does not really work if the item you are checking is dyanmic ).
Like this:
$IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("a") | where {$_.href -match "\?wicket:interface=:\d"}
This regex will return anything that containts "?wicket:interface=:digit".
One digit is the best option here since it will keep growing on refresh, assuming nothing else on the page matches that this should be good.