Integrating Selenium WebDriver Into An Automated Test Suite

It is no surprise that Selenium, PlayWright, Puppeteer, Cypress, etc., make it to the list of frameworks that are highly recommended for web automation testing. A test automation framework is selected based on a variety of factors, including type, scale, complexity, and team expertise with regard to frameworks. Developers and quality assurance professionals still prefer Selenium, however. It is very imperative to understand how Selenium WebDriver works. In this Selenium WebDriver tutorial, we will look at how Selenium WebDriver works, as well as what its architecture is like and how to integrate it into an automated test suite.

What Is Selenium?

Selenium is essentially a framework that is widely used in the testing community to test across browsers. Selenium cannot automate desktop applications; but it is only able to run within a browser. Due to its compatibility with popular web browsers, it is considered one of the most popular tool suites for automating web application testing. Various browsers like Chrome 12+, Internet Explorer 7,8,9,10, Opera 11.5, Safari 5.1+, Firefox 3+ and operating systems like the mac, Windows, Linux/Unix are supported.

Furthermore, Selenium provides compatibility with several programming languages, including C#, Ruby, Python, Java, JavaScript PHP. Testers can select the programming language that best suits their needs.

What Is Selenium WebDriver? 

An automated testing tool that performs cross-browser tests, Selenium WebDriver is used for automating web-based application testing to ensure that it performs as expected. Selenium WebDriver is an advancement over Selenium RC in that it enables the creation of test scripts using a programming language. While Selenium WebDriver cannot handle window components, tools such as Auto IT, Sikuli, and others can overcome this drawback.

Selenium RC’s Drawbacks And The Advent Of Webdriver

When Selenium RC (one of the four components of Selenium) was launched, it became an instant hit, because Selenium RC resolved the same-origin policy problem that plagued Selenium Core while testing web apps. But what was the same-origin policy problem?

Web application security is enforced by rules called same-origin policies. When both the JavaScript and web page being tested are hosted from the same domain, the web browser will allow JavaScript code to access elements on the web page. For the same reason that Selenium Core was not able to test every web page, it was handicapped as a JavaScript-based testing tool. Nevertheless, when Selenium RC was introduced, testers were rid of the same-origin policy issue. But, how did it accomplish that? It achieved that by combining two components: the Selenium RC server and the Selenium RC client. RC is therefore a tool comprised of both components. As a result, there is no method  to prevent the JavaScript code from accessing any web site since the Selenium RC server is an HTTP proxy server designed to fool the browser into thinking that it is from the same domain as Selenium Core. 

Although Selenium RC was a huge success, there were some problems associated with it. The main issue is how long it takes to execute tests. Test executions are very time-consuming due to the Selenium RC server acting as a middleman between your browser and Selenium commands. In addition, the architecture of RC is a bit complex.

In this architecture, Selenium Core is injected into the web browser first. In order to access and test the web elements, Selenium Core receives the instructions from the RC server and converts them into JavaScript commands. 

Selenium Webdriver Architecture

Until now, we have covered Selenium WebDriver and its basics in this Selenium WebDriver tutorial. We will now attempt to learn more about Selenium WebDriver in detail. Selenium WebDriver is actually a web framework that enables us to execute cross-browser tests. It is also possible to create test scripts in a variety of programming languages. Selenium WebDriver is nothing but an enhanced version of Selenium RC.

Four major components make up the Selenium WebDriver architecture:

• Selenium Client Libraries or the Language Bindings
• JSON Wire Protocol
• Browser Drivers
• Real Browsers

• Selenium Client Libraries or the Language Bindings

A Selenium client library can be downloaded from the official Selenium website if you are writing your tests in a specific language.

• JSON Wire Protocol

JavaScript Object Notation is an abbreviation for JavaScript Object Notation. It supports data structures. This includes structures like arrays and objects, making it easier to read and write data. The API acts as a method of transferring information between HTTP servers through the use of REST (Representational State Transfers).

• Browser Drivers 

Selenium uses drivers to build a secure connection to the browser. In addition, each automation language has a corresponding browser driver. Drivers hide the internal logic of the browser’s functionality. Whenever a Selenium automation test is triggered, the following actions are performed:

• Selenium generates HTTP requests for every command it executes, which are sent to the browser driver.
• HTTP Server routes this request.
• On the browser, instructions are now executed by the HTTP Server.
• Browsers send status updates to HTTP servers, which forward them to automation scripts.

These drivers include ChromeDriver, GeckoDriver, and MicrosoftEdgeDriver, among others.

• Browsers

Our tests are executed in browsers. Selenium supports Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge, and many other major browsers.

Selenium WebDriver Best Practices

A well-designed and scalable Selenium test suite can be achieved by following the best practices for Selenium WebDriver test automation.

1. An imperative feature of Selenium test automation is the ability to modify automated tests if there is a change in implementation related to the locators used in the test code. These locators include ID, XPath, CSS Selector, Name, Link Text,  and DOM Locator. In today’s tech-dependent world where there are so many web locators, it is essential to choose the right one so that changes in the user interface do not impact tests. For further information, read “The concept of the right locator for Selenium WebDriver automated scripts.” IDs, Classes, and Names are not only easier to use, but are also less brittle than other web locators.
2. It helps streamline development and Selenium testing if you use standard naming conventions for all types of files. If you work with a team, you may need to work with your team members to enhance your tests in some situations. Until you go through the complete implementation of a test, you might not be able to understand its purpose if you revisit it after a couple of months. By looking at the test name, you should be able to determine which functionalities have been broken when some tests fail during execution. By naming test cases in a self-explanatory manner, you and your teammates won’t have to waste time scrolling through the implementation unnecessarily, which will fix these problems easily.

3. Sleep calls should not be blocked. In particular, this pattern of sleep is an explicit wait. So this isn’t actually a Selenium WebDriver feature. However, this is a feature that is common to most programming languages. Sleeping in the Thread is what Thread.Sleep() does. 

When we call Thread.Sleep(), we are telling our program that for a period of time, it will do absolutely nothing, just sleep. The majority of the time when our program runs, it will be automated checks. So when we call Thread.Sleep, we are instructing our program to do nothing. Our checks are taking a nap, so we don’t care what our application under test is doing. In Selenium, two types of waits are involved: implicit and explicit. Implicit wait informs the browser to wait a specified amount of time for each element present on the page. In Selenium, the execution moves to the next line of code if the element is available faster than the implicit delay time. 

4. Logging and reporting should be implemented. If a particular test in an extensive test suite fails, finding the failing test case can be challenging. Console logs at appropriate places in the test code can be a huge help in such cases, as they help you to understand the code better and help you pinpoint the problem.There are several log levels available in popular programming languages: debug, info, warning, error, and critical. Adding unnecessary logs to the test implementation can delay the execution of the test. It is recommended to add logs with level error (and/or critical) in scenarios in which the cause of failure can be tracked.

5. Establish a solid foundation for Dev and Selenium testers with a central repository that organizes and defines folder structures using established naming conventions. As an example, erroneous filenames and code issues have a much greater negative impact on time spent. Furthermore, when working on Selenium tests, it is essential to make sure the test code is maintainable. The test project can consist of Src and Test folders. There can be subdirectories under the Src folder containing Page Objects, Helper functions, and files that contain web locator information specific to test scenarios. Under the Test folder, the actual tests can be found.

6. It is important to use Design Patterns and Principles. In order to solve the problems that arise in design and development automation, people developed patterns. Originally, the classic patterns were formulated many years ago by the four, who published the book Design Patterns. These four are also known as the gang of four. In this book, all patterns they encountered in an object-oriented world are formulated. Design patterns have been growing and developing for a long time, replenishing with new patterns over the years. Factory and Decorator are examples of the problem – the solution.

7. It is possible to test Selenium applications with Data-Driven Frameworks, Keyword-Driven Frameworks, or a Hybrid of Both. Data-Driven frameworks separate the test code from the dataset in a more effective manner. Test data is gathered from external sources (Excel, CSV, etc.). Websites (or web applications) should be tested against multiple browsers, devices, and operating systems (i.e., multiple datasets). Test automation scripts that hard code test values are not scalable since they result in unnecessary bloatware and duplicate code. Data-driven testing with Selenium can be achieved by using parameterization. Parameterization allows test cases to be executed against different input combinations.

An Overview Of Selenium Webdriver Scripts

This is how a Selenium WebDriver script works and when ypu have to integrate Selenium WebDriver into an automated Test Suite.

• Step 1: Set up an instance of WebDriver.
• Step 2: You can navigate to a website by clicking on it.
• Step 3: Utilize locators in Selenium to locate a web element on a website.
• Step 4: The element should be subjected to one or more user actions.
• Step 5: The output/browser response for the action should be preloaded.
• Step 6: Tests should be run.
• Step 7: Analyze the results and compare them to what was expected.

How Selenium WebDriver Works?

Three steps are involved in the Selenium WebDriver process:

• JSON wire protocol converts test commands into HTTP requests.
• All browsers initialize the server before they run any test cases.
• As soon as the browser’s driver receives the request, it starts processing it.

Let us now sum up!

In contrast to Selenium RC (Remote Control), which relies on a server, Selenium WebDriver interacts directly with the browser for automated web testing.

Selenium WebDriver includes the following features:

• In addition to Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari, Selenium WebDriver supports various other browsers as well.
• It is significantly faster to use Selenium WebDriver compared to Selenium RC.
• There are a number of simple commands that are easy to learn and implement when working with Selenium WebDriver.

By sending commands from a hub server to remote Web Browser instances, Selenium Grid allows parallel execution.

It is possible to run parallel tests with Selenium Grid tools like LambdaTest on over 3000 different browsers and operating systems by using the remote Selenium WebDriver rather than the local Selenium WebDriver. As they are readily available on the Selenium Grid, LambdaTest doesn’t require you to download and configure hundreds of browsers on your machine. In order to claim your 100 free minutes of automation testing, you only need to register for LambdaTest.