Prevent Test Automation Shelfware: A Selenium-WebDriver Case Study

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©2015 Eid Passport, Inc. All rights reserved. ©2015 Eid Passport, Inc. All rights reserved.

How to Prevent Test Automation Shelfware: A Selenium-WebDriver Case Study

Alan Ark [email protected] http://www.linkedin.com/in/arkie

©2015 Eid Passport, Inc. All rights reserved.

Goals

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Introduction to Selenium Tips and Tricks

Pitfalls to Avoid Ask questions as we go!

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Watir?

Web Application Testing in Ruby A different open source project that drives browsers for test automation


What is Selenium?

A tool to automate browsers! Quick regression testing across many browsers Automate web based admin tasks

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Why Selenium over Watir?

Choice More widely supported More bindings available


Regression testing!

Repetitive test efforts Time consuming Reproducible tests across many browsers

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Automation of web based admin tasks!

Creation of data Reading of records on the browser Updating of content Deletion of records


What version of Selenium?

Don’t use Selenium 1.0 - Selenium IDE Recorder is deprecated Javascript Injection to drive a browser Selenium 2 uses WebDriver http://docs.seleniumhq.org/projects/webdriver/

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WebDriver?

A platform and language-neutral interface that allows programs or scripts to introspect into, and control the behaviour of, a web browser http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-webdriver-20130117/


How do I start?

Pick a language! Java C# python ruby others supported as well

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Pick your browser/driver

Firefox Chrome IE Safari many more!


How do I interact with the browser?

Dev tools are built-in to browsers Inspect the HTML to glean the locators to use var inputElement = driver.FindElement(By.Name("myButton")); inputElement.Click();

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Built-in locators

Use these if you can driver.FindElement(By.Name("myName")); driver.FindElement(By.Id("myId")); driver.FindElement(By.ClassName("myClass")); others as well


XPath vs. CSS

XPath //div[. ='Some Text of the Div']

CSS table[id='tblBadgeInfo'] thead td

Speed considerations?

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Tips to avoid headaches….

GUI based tests sometimes thought of as fragile, brittle or unreliable How to prevent your Selenium automation from becoming shelfware


Use unique locators

Very difficult if locators are not unique Avoid using index numbers Ask for some name/id/class on UI elements from the development team

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Do not use hard coded sleeps

Makes test scripts brittle when run on different environments. // Sleep for 5 seconds Thread.Sleep(5000); button.Click();


Use a polling wait

Be flexible and return as soon as possible but ignore exceptions

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Use WebDriverWait

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30)); IWebElement myDynamicElement = wait.Until<IWebElement>((d) => { return d.FindElement(By.Id("myButtonId")); });


Use ExpectedConditions

Convenience methods on things that are checked often. Use these with WebDriverWait. http://selenium.googlecode.com/git/docs/api/dotnet/html/AllMembers_T_OpenQA_Selenium_Support_UI_ExpectedConditions.htm

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Use Page Objects

Isolate UI elements from the test cases If the UI changes, your tests only need to be modified in a single place - the Page Object that defines the UI Reduces duplicate code


Login Page Example

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Login Page Object

class LoginPage : BasePage { public LoginPage() {} public void Login(string username,string password) { var nameElement = driver.FindElement(By.Name("username")); nameElement.SendKeys(username); var passElement = driver.FindElement(By.Name("password")); passElement.SendKeys(password); var submitButton = driver.FindElement(By.Name("submit")); submitButton.Click(); } }


Login Test Case

var loginPage = new LoginPage(); loginPage.Login("user","pass");

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Verify your assumptions….

Are you where you think you are?

Verify page elements on transitions Clicked links Form submission AJAX transitions


Be Generous with your logging

Overlogging is better than underlogging

Easier to examine output files to see where failures are occurring

Especially true for remote execution Use logging to get a trail on most events

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Things I like to log

URL of the page Timestamp Values used on assertions Values used on comparators Values used on loops


IE Considerations

Sometimes click appears to do “nothing” Use SendKeys instead of Click https://www.google.com/webhp?q=ie+click+selenium

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SendKeys Code

Instead of button.Click();

Use

button.SendKeys(Keys.Enter);


Handling Frames

Be sure to set the focus to the frame hosting your elements. IWebElement mainFrame =

driver.FindElement(By.Name("MainFrame")); driver.SwitchTo().Frame(mainFrame);

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Handling Dialogs

Javascript alerts Javascript confirm Javascript prompts


Example code

try { driver.SwitchTo().Alert(); return true; } catch (NoAlertPresentException) { // Modal dialog is not displayed return false; }

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Handling Popup windows

var windowHandles = driver.WindowHandles; // if handle 0 is the main window then handle 1 // is the popup, otherwise the popup is handle 0 var popUp = (windowHandles[0] == mainWindowHandle ? windowHandles[1] : windowHandles[0]); driver.SwitchTo().Window(popUp); <do stuff> driver.SwitchTo().Window(mainWindowHandle);


Not the only answer...

Sometimes Selenium can’t do the job. AutoIt can be used as a fall-back.

https://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/

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Browser login prompts


Advanced Topics

Use with Continuous Integration tools Remote control of tests Selenium Grid

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Summary

Instrument your framework correctly and Selenium tests can be very good for you Don’t be discouraged. Try different things. Investigate to see what Selenium can do for you


The End

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Enjoy the journey and

Have fun!

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Thank you!

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Questions/Comments? Contact Info: Alan Ark [email protected] http://www.linkedin.com/in/arkie

Software

Prevent Test Automation Shelfware: A Selenium-WebDriver Case Study