Automated Web
Testing with Selenium
Erik Doernenburg
ThoughtWorks
Agenda
• What is Selenium?
• Writing Maintainable Tests
What is Selenium?
• Test tool for web applications
• Runs in any mainstream browser
• Supports tests in many languages
• Selenese (pure HTML, no backend required)
• Java, C#, Perl, Python, Ruby
• Record/playback (Selenium IDE)
• Open Source with corporate backing
• Lives at [Link]
Demo
• Record a test in Selenium IDE
• Show same test written in Java
Java Test example
public void testGoogleTestSearch() throws Exception
{
[Link]("[Link]
assertEquals("Google", [Link]());
[Link]("q", "Selenium OpenQA");
[Link]("btnG");
[Link]("5000");
assertEquals("Selenium OpenQA - Google Search",
[Link]());
}
Java SetUp/TearDown example
public void setUp() throws Exception
{
selenium = new DefaultSelenium(
"localhost", 4444, "*chrome",
"[Link]
[Link]();
}
public void tearDown() throws Exception
{
[Link]();
}
A few Selenese commands
click getHtmlSource isVisible
close getTitle keyPress
createCookie getValue mouseOver
dragdrop goBack open
fireEvent isElementPresent refresh
getEval isTextPresent type
Element locators
• ID: id=foo [Link]("btnG");
• Name: name=foo
• First ID, then name: identifier=foo
• DOM: [Link][‘myform’].myDropdown
• XPath: xpath=//table[@id='table1']//tr[4]/td[2]
• Link Text: link=sometext
• CSS Selector: css=a[href=“#id3”]
• Sensible defaults, e.g. xpath if starts with //
How Selenium works
Agenda
• What is Selenium?
• Writing Maintainable Tests
Standard end-user black-box test
1. Login as administrator
2. Create a user
3. Log out
4. Login as that user
5. Create a folder
6. Create a thingy in that folder
7. Search for that thingy in the search box
8. Make sure your thingy shows up on the search
results page
Fragile Automated Tests
• Exercising irrelevant features
• Logging in/Logging out
• Creating a folder
• Creating a thingy
• If the UI for any one of those features changes,
your search test fails
Know when to record tests
• Recorded tests reuse no code
• “Record & Tweak” vs. “Fire and Forget”
• Slight change in folder creator page means
all of those tests have to be re-recorded
from scratch
• Use the recorder to create reusable code
Unit testing vs. Integration testing
• Selenium tests are integration tests
• Functional/Acceptance/User/Compatibility
• Unit tests verify a unit in isolation
• If [Link] fails, the bug must be in [Link]
• Cannot fail due to browser incompatibilities
• Must be completely isolated from each other
• Integration tests verify that units work together
• Requires testing multiple configurations (browsers)
• Tend to build on the side-effects of earlier tests
Presentation Model
• Create a layer of classes that mimic the UI
• a field for every text box, etc.
• a method for every button
• Test the application flow using this model
• Can use normal unit test framework
• Insulated from design changes
• Use Selenium to check wiring and browser
compatibility
Create abstractions
• Tests can use all language features
• extract method, inheritance, …
public void testSearchForThingy()
{
createTestUserAndLogin();
createThingyInFolder("Foo", "Test Folder");
searchForThingy("Foo");
assertTrue(isPresentInResultList("Foo"));
}
• Re-use makes tests less fragile
Use your code directly
• Prepare your search tests using model API
FolderBean fb = new FolderBean();
[Link]([Link]);
[Link]("foo");
[Link](); // adds a folder to the DB
[Link]("/search");
[Link]("query", "foo");
[Link]("search");
assertTrue([Link]("foo found");
• Your tests and web app are written in same
language...
A class per test vs. A class per page
• Do create a class for each test
• this inherits from TestCase
• contains the ‘flow’ of the test
• If the same pages are used by multiple tests
• create a separate hierarchy of classes, one per page
• inject the test into the page to access Selenium
public void testWorkflow() {
! WelcomePage welcomePage = new WelcomePage(this);
! [Link]();
! DailyView dailyView = new DailyView(this);
! [Link]("LDN");
! [Link]();
JUnit vs. TestNG
• JUnit is “opinionated software”
public void setUp() {
• Dependencies between tests} are
log("setup");
explicitly prevented
• Separate tests are testing separate
public units
void testFoo() {
• Everything gets torn down after every test method
log("foo");
• Constantly starting/stoppingpublic
} browser
void testBar() {
• TestNG has dependsOnX } log("bar");
public void tearDown() {
log("teardown");
}
________________________
» setup foo teardown
setup bar teardown
Summary
• Use Selenium when it makes sense
• when you want to reproduce a user’s
interaction with your application in a
real web browser
• when you depend on the browser (AJAX)
• Do consider presentation model and HTTPUnit
• Use Selenium for Integration Testing
• Use Selenium in your development environment
• Use the features offered by your language
