PhantomJS; click an element

Question

How do I click an element in PhantomJS?

page.evaluate(function() {
    document.getElementById('idButtonSpan').click();  
});

This gives me an error "undefined is not a function..."

If I instead

 return document.getElementById('idButtonSpan');

and then print it,

then it prints [object object], so the element does exist.

The element acts as a button, but it's actually just a span element, not a submit input.

I was able to get this button click to work with Casper, but Casper had other limitations so I'm back to PhantomJS.

Answer 1

.click() is not standard. You need to create an event and dispatch it:

function click(el){
    var ev = document.createEvent("MouseEvent");
    ev.initMouseEvent(
        "click",
        true /* bubble */, true /* cancelable */,
        window, null,
        0, 0, 0, 0, /* coordinates */
        false, false, false, false, /* modifier keys */
        0 /*left*/, null
    );
    el.dispatchEvent(ev);
}