Selenium Documentation 1

CONTENTS

1 Note to the Reader–Docs Being Revised for Selenium 2.0! 3

2 Introduction 5

2.1 Test Automation for Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 To Automate or Not to Automate? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.3 Introducing Selenium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.4 Brief History of The Selenium Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.5 Selenium’s Tool Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.6 Choosing Your Selenium Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.7 Supported Browsers and Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2.8 Flexibility and Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.9 What’s in this Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2.10 The Documentation Team–Authors Past and Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Selenium-IDE 13

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.2 Installing the IDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.3 Opening the IDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.4 IDE Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.5 Building Test Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.6 Running Test Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.7 Using Base URL to Run Test Cases in Different Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.8 Selenium Commands – “Selenese” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3.9 Script Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.10 Test Suites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.11 Commonly Used Selenium Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.12 Verifying Page Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.13 Assertion or Verification? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

REVISED FOR SELENIUM 2.0!

Hello, and welcome! The Documentation Team would like to welcome you, and to thank you for being

interested in Selenium.

We are currently updating this document for the Selenium 2.0 release. This means we are currently

writing and editing new material, and revising old material. While reading, you may experience typos

or other minor errors. If so, please be patient with us. Rather than withholding information until

it’s finally complete, we are frequently checking-in new writing and revisions as we go. Still, we do

check our facts first and are confident the info we’ve submitted is accurate and useful. Still, if you

find an error, particularly in one of our code examples, please let us know. You can create a new issue

(http://code.google.com/p/selenium/issues/entry) with “Docs Error” in the subject line.

We have worked very, very hard on this document. And, as just mentioned, we are once again working

hard, on the new revision. Why? We absolutely believe this is the best tool for web-application testing.

We feel its extensibility and flexibility, along with its tight integration with the browser, is unmatched by

available proprietary tools. We are very excited to promote Selenium and, hopefully, to expand its user

community. In short, we really want to “get the word out” about Selenium.

We believe you will be similarly excited once you understand how Selenium approaches test automation.

It’s quite different from other automation tools. Whether you are brand-new to Selenium, or have been

using it for awhile, we believe this documentation will truly help to spread the knowledge around. We

have aimed our writing so that those completely new to test automation can use this document as a

stepping stone. However, at the same time we have included a number of advanced, test design topics

that should be interesting to the experienced software engineer. In both cases we have written the “Sel-

Docs” to help test engineers of all abilities to quickly become productive writing your own Selenium

tests. Experienced users and “newbies” alike will benefit from our Selenium User’s Guide.

Thanks very much for reading.

– the Selenium Documentation Team

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4 Chapter 1. Note to the Reader–Docs Being Revised for Selenium 2.0!

CHAPTER

TWO

INTRODUCTION

2.1 Test Automation for Web Applications

Many, perhaps most, software applications today are written as web-based applications to be run in an

Internet browser. The effectiveness of testing these applications varies widely among companies and

organizations. In an era of highly interactive and responsive software processes where many organizations

are using some form of Agile methodology, test automation is frequently becoming a requirement

for software projects. Test automation is often the answer. Test automation means using a software

tool to run repeatable tests against the application to be tested. For regression testing this provides that

responsiveness.

There are many advantages to test automation. Most are related to the repeatability of the tests and the

speed at which the tests can be executed. There are a number of commercial and open source tools

available for assisting with the development of test automation. Selenium is possibly the most widelyused

open source solution. This user’s guide will assist both new and experienced Selenium users in

learning effective techniques in building test automation for web applications.

This user’s guide introduces Selenium, teaches its features, and presents commonly used best practices

accumulated from the Selenium community. Many examples are provided. Also, technical information

on the internal structure of Selenium and recommended uses of Selenium are provided.

Test automation has specific advantages for improving the long-term efficiency of a software team’s

testing processes. Test automation supports:

• Frequent regression testing

• Rapid feedback to developers

• Virtually unlimited iterations of test case execution

• Support for Agile and extreme development methodologies

• Disciplined documentation of test cases

• Customized defect reporting

• Finding defects missed by manual testing

2.2 To Automate or Not to Automate?

Is automation always advantageous? When should one decide to automate test cases?

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It is not always advantageous to automate test cases. There are times when manual testing may be

more appropriate. For instance, if the application’s user interface will change considerably in the near

future, then any automation might need to be rewritten anyway. Also, sometimes there simply is not

enough time to build test automation. For the short term, manual testing may be more effective. If an

application has a very tight deadline, there is currently no test automation available, and it’s imperative

that the testing get done within that time frame, then manual testing is the best solution.

2.3 Introducing Selenium

Selenium is a set of different software tools each with a different approach to supporting test automation.

Most Selenium QA Engineers focus on the one or two tools that most meet the needs of their project,

however learning all the tools will give you many different options for approaching different test automation

problems. The entire suite of tools results in a rich set of testing functions specifically geared

to the needs of testing of web applications of all types. These operations are highly flexible, allowing

many options for locating UI elements and comparing expected test results against actual application

behavior. One of Selenium’s key features is the support for executing one’s tests on multiple browser

platforms.

2.4 Brief History of The Selenium Project

Selenium first came to life in 2004 when Jason Huggins was testing an internal application at Thought-

Works. Being a smart guy, he realized there were better uses of his time than manually stepping through

the same tests with every change he made. He developed a Javascript library that could drive interactions

with the page, allowing him to automatically rerun tests against multiple browsers. That library

eventually became Selenium Core, which underlies all the functionality of Selenium Remote Control

(RC) and Selenium IDE. Selenium RC was ground-breaking because no other product allowed you to

control a browser from a language of your choice.

While Selenium was a tremendous tool, it wasn’t without its drawbacks. Because of its Javascript based

automation engine and the security limitations browsers apply to Javascript, different things became

impossible to do. To make things “worst”, webapps became more and more powerful over time, using

all sorts of special features new browsers provide and making this restrictions more and more painful.

In 2006 a plucky engineer at Google named Simon Stewart started work on a project he called Web-

Driver. Google had long been a heavy user of Selenium, but testers had to work around the limitations

of the product. Simon wanted a testing tool that spoke directly to the browser using the ‘native’ method

for the browser and operating system, thus avoiding the restrictions of a sandboxed Javascript environment.

The WebDriver project began with the aim to solve the Selenium’ pain-points.

Jump to 2008. The Beijing Olympics mark China’s arrival as a global power, massive mortgage default

in the United States triggers the worst international recession since the Great Depression, The Dark

Knight is viewed by every human (twice), still reeling from the untimely loss of Heath Ledger. But the

most important story of that year was the merging of Selenium and WebDriver. Selenium had massive

community and commercial support, but WebDriver was clearly the tool of the future. The joining of

the two tools provided a common set of features for all users and brought some of the brightest minds

in test automation under one roof. Perhaps the best explanation for why WebDriver and Selenium are

merging was detailed by Simon Stewart, the creator ofWebDriver, in a joint email to theWebDriver and

Selenium community on August 6, 2009.

“Why are the projects merging? Partly because webdriver addresses some shortcomings in

selenium (by being able to bypass the JS sandbox, for example. And we’ve got a gorgeous

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API), partly because selenium addresses some shortcomings in webdriver (such as supporting

a broader range of browsers) and partly because the main selenium contributors and I

felt that it was the best way to offer users the best possible framework.”

2.5 Selenium’s Tool Suite

Selenium is composed of multiple software tools. Each has a specific role.

2.5.1 Selenium 2 (aka. Selenium Webdriver)

Selenium 2 is the future direction of the project and the newest addition to the Selenium toolkit. This

brand new automation tool provides all sorts of awesome features, including a more cohesive and object

oriented API as well as an answer to the limitations of the old implementation.

As you can read in Brief History of The Selenium Project, both the Selenium andWebDriver developers

agreed that both tools have advantages and that merging the two projects would make a much more

robust automation tool.

Selenium 2.0 is the product of that effort. It supports the WebDriver API and underlying technology,

along with the Selenium 1 technology underneath the WebDriver API for maximum flexibility in porting

your tests. In addition, Selenium 2 still runs Selenium 1’s Selenium RC interface for backwards

compatibility.

2.5.2 Selenium 1 (aka. Selenium RC or Remote Control)

As you can read in Brief History of The Selenium Project, Selenium RC was the main Selenium project

for a long time, before the WebDriver/Selenium merge brought up Selenium 2, the newest and more

powerful tool.

Selenium 1 is still actively supported (mostly in maintenance mode) and provides some features that

may not be available in Selenium 2 for a while, including support for several languages (Java, Javascript,

Ruby, PHP, Python, Perl and C#) and support for almost every browser out there.

2.5.3 Selenium IDE

Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a prototyping tool for building test scripts. It

is a Firefox plugin and provides an easy-to-use interface for developing automated tests. Selenium IDE

has a recording feature, which records user actions as they are performed and then exports them as a

reusable script in one of many programming languages that can be later executed.

Note: Even though Selenium IDE has a “Save” feature that allows users to keep the tests in a tablebased

format for later import and execution, it is not designed to run your test passes nor is it designed

to build all the automated tests you will need. Specifically, Selenium IDE doesn’t provide iteration or

conditional statements for test scripts. At the time of writing there is no plan to add such thing. The

reasons are partly technical and partly based on the Selenium developers encouraging best practices

in test automation which always requires some amount of programming. Selenium IDE is simply

intended as a rapid prototyping tool. The Selenium developers recommend for serious, robust test

automation either Selenium 2 or Selenium 1 to be used with one of the many supported programming

languages.

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2.5.4 Selenium-Grid

Selenium-Grid allows the Selenium RC solution to scale for large test suites and for test suites that

must be run in multiple environments. Selenium Grid allows you to run your tests in parallel, that is,

different tests can be run at the same time on different remote machines. This has two advantages. First,

if you have a large test suite, or a slow-running test suite, you can boost its performance substantially by

using Selenium Grid to divide your test suite to run different tests at the same time using those different

machines. Also, if you must run your test suite on multiple environments you can have different remote

machines supporting and running your tests in them at the same time. In each case Selenium Grid greatly

improves the time it takes to run your suite by making use of parallel processing.

2.6 Choosing Your Selenium Tool

Many people get started with Selenium IDE. If you are not already experienced with a programming or

scripting language you can use Selenium IDE to get familiar with Selenium commands. Using the IDE

you can create simple tests quickly, sometimes within seconds.

We don’t, however, recommend you do all your test automation using Selenium IDE. To effectively use

Selenium you will need to build and run your tests using either Selenium 2 or Selenium 1 in conjunction

with one of the supported programming languages. Which one you choose depends on you.

At the time of writing the Selenium developers are planning on the Selenium-WebDriver API being the

future direction for Selenium. Selenium 1 is provided for backwards compatibility. Still, both have

strengths and weaknesses which are discussed in the corresponding chapters of this document.

We recommend those who are completely new to Selenium to read through these sections. However, for

those who are adopting Selenium for the first time, and therefore building a new test suite from scratch,

you will probably want to go with Selenium 2 since this is the portion of Selenium that will continue to

be supported in the future.

2.7 Supported Browsers and Platforms

In Selenium 2.0, the supported browsers vary depending on whether you are using Selenium-WebDriver

or Selenium-RC.

2.7.1 Selenium-WebDriver

Selenium-WebDriver supports the following browsers along with the operating systems these browsers

are compatible with.

• Google Chrome 12.0.712.0+

• Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, 9 - 32 and 64-bit where applicable

• Firefox 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, 4.0, 5.0, 6, 7

• Opera 11.5+

• HtmlUnit 2.9

• Android – 2.3+ for phones and tablets (devices & emulators)

• iOS 3+ for phones (devices & emulators) and 3.2+ for tablets (devices & emulators)

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Note: At the time of writing there is an emulator bug with Android 2.3 that prevents the driver from

working properly on device emulators. However, it works fine on tablet emulators and real devices.

2.7.2 Selenium 1.0 and Selenium-RC.

This is the old, support platfom for Selenium 1.0. It should still apply to the Selenium 2.0 release of

Selenium-RC.

Browser Selenium IDE Selenium 1 (RC) Operating Systems

Firefox 3.x Record and playback tests Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

Firefox 3 Record and playback tests Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

Firefox 2 Record and playback tests Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

IE 8 Test execution only via Selenium RC* Start browser, run tests Windows

IE 7 Test execution only via Selenium RC* Start browser, run tests Windows

IE 6 Test execution only via Selenium RC* Start browser, run tests Windows

Safari 4 Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Mac

Safari 3 Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Mac

Safari 2 Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Mac

Opera 10 Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

Opera 9 Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

Opera 8 Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

Google Chrome Test execution only via Selenium RC Start browser, run tests Windows, Linux, Mac

Others Test execution only via Selenium RC Partial support possible** As applicable

* Tests developed on Firefox via Selenium IDE can be executed on any other supported browser via a

simple Selenium RC command line.

** Selenium RC server can start any executable, but depending on browser security settings there may

be technical limitations that would limit certain features.

2.8 Flexibility and Extensibility

You’ll find that Selenium is highly flexible. There are many ways you can add functionality to both

Selenium test scripts and Selenium’s framework to customize your test automation. This is perhaps

Selenium’s greatest strength when compared with other automation tools. These customizations are

described in various places throughout this document. In addition, since Selenium is Open Source, the

sourcecode can always be downloaded and modified.

2.9 What’s in this Book?

This user’s guide targets both new users and those who have already used Selenium but are seeking

additional knowledge. We introduce Selenium to new users and we do not assume prior Selenium experience.

We do assume, however, that the user has at least a basic understanding of test automation.

For the more experienced user, this guide can act as a reference. For the more experienced, we recommend

browsing the chapter and subheadings. We’ve provided information on the Selenium architecture,

examples of common usage, and a chapter on test design techniques.

The remaining chapters of the reference present:

Selenium IDE Introduces Selenium IDE and describes how to use it to build test scripts. using the

Selenium Integrated Development Environment. If you are not experienced in programming, but

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still hoping to learn test automation this is where you should start and you’ll find you can create

quite a few automated tests with Selenium IDE. Also, if you are experienced in programming, this

chapter may still interest you in that you can use Selenium IDE to do rapid prototyping of your

tests. This section also demonstrates how your test script can be “exported” to a programming

language for adding more advanced capabilities not supported by Selenium IDE.

Selenium 2 Explains how to develop an automated test program using Selenium 2.

Selenium 1 Explains how to develop an automated test program using the Selenium RC API. Many

examples are presented in both programming languages and scripting languages. Also, the installation

and setup of Selenium RC is covered here. The various modes, or configurations, that

Selenium RC supports are described, along with their trade-offs and limitations. An architecture

diagram is provided to help illustrate these points. Solutions to common problems frequently difficult

for new Sel-R users are described here, for instance, handling Security Certificates, https

requests, pop-ups, and the opening of new windows.

Test Design Considerations This chapter presents programming techniques for use with Selenium-

WebDriver and Selenium RC. We also demonstrate techniques commonly asked about in the user

forum such as how to design setup and teardown functions, how to implement data-driven tests

(tests where one can vary the data between test passes) and other methods of programming common

test automation tasks.

Selenium-Grid This chapter is not yet developed.

User extensions Describes ways that Selenium can be modified, extended and customized.

2.10 The Documentation Team–Authors Past and Present

In alphabetical order, the following people have made significant contributions to the authoring of this

user’s guide, its publishing infrastructure, or both. We are very grateful to all of them.

• Dave Hunt

• Luke Inman-Semerau

• Mary Ann May-Pumphrey

• Noah Sussman

• Paul Grandjean

• Peter Newhook

• Santiago Suarez-Ordonez

• Simon Stewart

• Tarun Kumar

2.10.1 Acknowledgements

A special thanks goes to Patrick Lightbody. As an administrator of the SeleniumHQ website, major

contributor to Selenium RC, his support was invaluable when writing the first release of the user’s

guide. Patrick helped us understand our audience. He also set us up with everything we needed on the

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seleniumhq.org website for publishing the documents. Also a thanks goes to Andras Hatvani for his

advice on publishing solutions, and to Amit Kumar for participating in our discussions and for assisting

with reviewing the document.

And of course, we must recognize the Selenium Developers. They have truly designed an amazing tool.

Without the vision of the original designers, and the continued efforts of the current developers, we

would not have such a great tool to pass on to you.

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CHAPTER

THREE

SELENIUM-IDE

3.1 Introduction

The Selenium-IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is the tool you use to develop your Selenium

test cases. It’s an easy-to-use Firefox plug-in and is generally the most efficient way to develop test

cases. It also contains a context menu that allows you to first select a UI element from the browser’s

currently displayed page and then select from a list of Selenium commands with parameters pre-defined

according to the context of the selected UI element. This is not only a time-saver, but also an excellent

way of learning Selenium script syntax.

This chapter is all about the Selenium IDE and how to use it effectively.

3.2 Installing the IDE

Using Firefox, first, download the IDE from the SeleniumHQ downloads page

Firefox will protect you from installing addons from unfamiliar locations, so you will need to click

‘Allow’ to proceed with the installation, as shown in the following screenshot.

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When downloading from Firefox, you’ll be presented with the following window.

Select Install Now. The Firefox Add-ons window pops up, first showing a progress bar, and when the

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download is complete, displays the following.

Restart Firefox. After Firefox reboots you will find the Selenium-IDE listed under the Firefox Tools

menu.

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3.3 Opening the IDE

To run the Selenium-IDE, simply select it from the Firefox Tools menu. It opens as follows with an

empty script-editing window and a menu for loading, or creating new test cases.

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3.4 IDE Features

3.4.1 Menu Bar

The File menu has options for Test Case and Test Suite (suite of Test Cases). Using these you can add a

new Test Case, open a Test Case, save a Test Case, export Test Case in a language of your choice. You

can also open the recent Test Case.All these options are also available for Test Suite.

The Edit menu allows copy, paste, delete, undo, and select all operations for editing the commands in

your test case. The Options menu allows the changing of settings. You can set the timeout value for

certain commands, add user-defined user extensions to the base set of Selenium commands, and specify

the format (language) used when saving your test cases. The Help menu is the standard Firefox Help

menu; only one item on this menu–UI-Element Documentation–pertains to Selenium-IDE.

3.4.2 Toolbar

The toolbar contains buttons for controlling the execution of your test cases, including a step feature for

debugging your test cases. The right-most button, the one with the red-dot, is the record button.

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Speed Control: controls how fast your test case runs.

Run All: Runs the entire test suite when a test suite with multiple test cases is loaded.

Run: Runs the currently selected test. When only a single test is loaded this button and the Run

All button have the same effect.

Pause/Resume: Allows stopping and re-starting of a running test case.

Step: Allows you to “step” through a test case by running it one command at a time. Use for

debugging test cases.

TestRunner Mode: Allows you to run the test case in a browser loaded with the Selenium-Core

TestRunner. The TestRunner is not commonly used now and is likely to be deprecated. This

button is for evaluating test cases for backwards compatibility with the TestRunner. Most users

will probably not need this button.

Apply Rollup Rules: This advanced feature allows repetitive sequences of Selenium commands

to be grouped into a single action. Detailed documentation on rollup rules can be found in the

UI-Element Documentation on the Help menu.

Record: Records the user’s browser actions.

3.4.3 Test Case Pane

Your script is displayed in the test case pane. It has two tabs, one for displaying the command and their

parameters in a readable “table” format.

The other tab - Source displays the test case in the native format in which the file will be stored. By

default, this is HTML although it can be changed to a programming language such as Java or C#, or a

scripting language like Python. See the Options menu for details. The Source view also allows one to

edit the test case in its raw form, including copy, cut and paste operations.

The Command, Target, and Value entry fields display the currently selected command along with its

parameters. These are entry fields where you can modify the currently selected command. The first

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parameter specified for a command in the Reference tab of the bottom pane always goes in the Target

field. If a second parameter is specified by the Reference tab, it always goes in the Value field.

If you start typing in the Command field, a drop-down list will be populated based on the first characters

you type; you can then select your desired command from the drop-down.

3.4.4 Log/Reference/UI-Element/Rollup Pane

The bottom pane is used for four different functions–Log, Reference, UI-Element, and Rollup–

depending on which tab is selected.

Log

When you run your test case, error messages and information messages showing the progress are displayed

in this pane automatically, even if you do not first select the Log tab. These messages are often

useful for test case debugging. Notice the Clear button for clearing the Log. Also notice the Info button

is a drop-down allowing selection of different levels of information to log.

Reference

The Reference tab is the default selection whenever you are entering or modifying Selenese commands

and parameters in Table mode. In Table mode, the Reference pane will display documentation on the

current command. When entering or modifying commands, whether from Table or Source mode, it is

critically important to ensure that the parameters specified in the Target and Value fields match those

specified in the parameter list in the Reference pane. The number of parameters provided must match

the number specified, the order of parameters provided must match the order specified, and the type of

parameters provided must match the type specified. If there is a mismatch in any of these three areas,

the command will not run correctly.

While the Reference tab is invaluable as a quick reference, it is still often necessary to consult the

Selenium Reference document.

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UI-Element and Rollup

Detailed information on these two panes (which cover advanced features) can be found in the UIElement

Documentation on the Help menu of Selenium-IDE.

3.5 Building Test Cases

There are three primary methods for developing test cases. Frequently, a test developer will require all

three techniques.

3.5.1 Recording

Many first-time users begin by recording a test case from their interactions with a website. When

Selenium-IDE is first opened, the record button is ON by default. If you do not want Selenium-IDE

to begin recording automatically you can turn this off by going under Options > Options... and deselecting

“Start recording immediately on open.”

During recording, Selenium-IDE will automatically insert commands into your test case based on your

actions. Typically, this will include:

• clicking a link - click or clickAndWait commands

• entering values - type command

• selecting options from a drop-down listbox - select command

• clicking checkboxes or radio buttons - click command

Here are some “gotchas” to be aware of:

• The type command may require clicking on some other area of the web page for it to record.

• Following a link usually records a click command. You will often need to change this to clickAnd-

Wait to ensure your test case pauses until the new page is completely loaded. Otherwise, your test

case will continue running commands before the page has loaded all its UI elements. This will

cause unexpected test case failures.

3.5.2 Adding Verifications and Asserts With the Context Menu

Your test cases will also need to check the properties of a web-page. This requires assert and verify

commands. We won’t describe the specifics of these commands here; that is in the chapter on Selenium

Commands – “Selenese”. Here we’ll simply describe how to add them to your test case.

With Selenium-IDE recording, go to the browser displaying your test application and right click anywhere

on the page. You will see a context menu showing verify and/or assert commands.

The first time you use Selenium, there may only be one Selenium command listed. As you use the IDE

however, you will find additional commands will quickly be added to this menu. Selenium-IDE will

attempt to predict what command, along with the parameters, you will need for a selected UI element

on the current web-page.

Let’s see how this works. Open a web-page of your choosing and select a block of text on the page. A

paragraph or a heading will work fine. Now, right-click the selected text. The context menu should give

you a verifyTextPresent command and the suggested parameter should be the text itself.

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Also, notice the Show All Available Commands menu option. This shows many, many more commands,

again, along with suggested parameters, for testing your currently selected UI element.

Try a few more UI elements. Try right-clicking an image, or a user control like a button or a checkbox.

You may need to use Show All Available Commands to see options other than verifyTextPresent. Once

you select these other options, the more commonly used ones will show up on the primary context

menu. For example, selecting verifyElementPresent for an image should later cause that command to be

available on the primary context menu the next time you select an image and right-click.

Again, these commands will be explained in detail in the chapter on Selenium commands. For now

though, feel free to use the IDE to record and select commands into a test case and then run it. You can

learn a lot about the Selenium commands simply by experimenting with the IDE.

3.5.3 Editing

Insert Command

Table View

Select the point in your test case where you want to insert the command. To do this, in the Test Case

Pane, left-click on the line where you want to insert a new command. Right-click and select Insert

Command; the IDE will add a blank line just ahead of the line you selected. Now use the command

editing text fields to enter your new command and its parameters.

Source View

Select the point in your test case where you want to insert the command. To do this, in the Test Case

Pane, left-click between the commands where you want to insert a new command, and enter the HTML

tags needed to create a 3-column row containing the Command, first parameter (if one is required by the

Command), and second parameter (again, if one is required). Be sure to save your test before switching

back to Table view.

Insert Comment

Comments may be added to make your test case more readable. These comments are ignored when the

test case is run.

Comments may also be used to add vertical white space (one or more blank lines) in your tests; just

create empty comments. An empty command will cause an error during execution; an empty comment

won’t.

Table View

Select the line in your test case where you want to insert the comment. Right-click and select Insert

Comment. Now use the Command field to enter the comment. Your comment will appear in purple text.

Source View

Select the point in your test case where you want to insert the comment. Add an HTML-style comment,

i.e., <!-- your comment here -->.

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Edit a Command or Comment

Table View

Simply select the line to be changed and edit it using the Command, Target, and Value fields.

Source View

Since Source view provides the equivalent of a WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor,

simply modify which line you wish–command, parameter, or comment.

3.5.4 Opening and Saving a Test Case

Like most programs, there are Save and Open commands under the File menu. However, Selenium

distinguishes between test cases and test suites. To save your Selenium-IDE tests for later use you can

either save the individual test cases, or save the test suite. If the test cases of your test suite have not

been saved, you’ll be prompted to save them before saving the test suite.

When you open an existing test case or suite, Selenium-IDE displays its Selenium commands in the Test

Case Pane.

3.6 Running Test Cases

The IDE allows many options for running your test case. You can run a test case all at once, stop and

start it, run it one line at a time, run a single command you are currently developing, and you can do a

batch run of an entire test suite. Execution of test cases is very flexible in the IDE.

Run a Test Case Click the Run button to run the currently displayed test case.

Run a Test Suite Click the Run All button to run all the test cases in the currently loaded test suite.

Stop and Start The Pause button can be used to stop the test case while it is running. The icon of this

button then changes to indicate the Resume button. To continue click Resume.

Stop in the Middle You can set a breakpoint in the test case to cause it to stop on a particular command.

This is useful for debugging your test case. To set a breakpoint, select a command, right-click,

and from the context menu select Toggle Breakpoint.

Start from the Middle You can tell the IDE to begin running from a specific command in the middle

of the test case. This also is used for debugging. To set a startpoint, select a command, right-click,

and from the context menu select Set/Clear Start Point.

Run Any Single Command Double-click any single command to run it by itself. This is useful when

writing a single command. It lets you immediately test a command you are constructing, when

you are not sure if it is correct. You can double-click it to see if it runs correctly. This is also

available from the context menu.

3.7 Using Base URL to Run Test Cases in Different Domains

The Base URL field at the top of the Selenium-IDE window is very useful for allowing test cases to be

run across different domains. Suppose that a site named http://news.portal.com had an in-house beta

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site named http://beta.news.portal.com. Any test cases for these sites that begin with an open statement

should specify a relative URL as the argument to open rather than an absolute URL (one starting with a

protocol such as http: or https:). Selenium-IDE will then create an absolute URL by appending the open

command’s argument onto the end of the value of Base URL. For example, the test case below would be

run against http://news.portal.com/about.html:

This same test case with a modified Base URL setting would be run against

http://beta.news.portal.com/about.html:

3.8 Selenium Commands – “Selenese”

Selenium commands, often called selenese, are the set of commands that run your tests. A sequence of

these commands is a test script. Here we explain those commands in detail, and we present the many

choices you have in testing your web application when using Selenium.

Selenium provides a rich set of commands for fully testing your web-app in virtually any way you

can imagine. The command set is often called selenese. These commands essentially create a testing

language.

In selenese, one can test the existence of UI elements based on their HTML tags, test for specific content,

test for broken links, input fields, selection list options, submitting forms, and table data among other

things. In addition Selenium commands support testing of window size, mouse position, alerts, Ajax

functionality, pop up windows, event handling, and many other web-application features. The Command

Reference lists all the available commands.

A command is what tells Selenium what to do. Selenium commands come in three “flavors”: Actions,

Accessors, and Assertions.

• Actions are commands that generally manipulate the state of the application. They do things like

“click this link” and “select that option”. If an Action fails, or has an error, the execution of the

current test is stopped.

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Many Actions can be called with the “AndWait” suffix, e.g. “clickAndWait”. This suffix tells

Selenium that the action will cause the browser to make a call to the server, and that Selenium

should wait for a new page to load.

• Accessors examine the state of the application and store the results in variables, e.g. “storeTitle”.

They are also used to automatically generate Assertions.

• Assertions are like Accessors, but they verify that the state of the application conforms to what

is expected. Examples include “make sure the page title is X” and “verify that this checkbox is

checked”.

All Selenium Assertions can be used in 3 modes: “assert”, “verify”, and ” waitFor”. For example,

you can “assertText”, “verifyText” and “waitForText”. When an “assert” fails, the test is aborted.

When a “verify” fails, the test will continue execution, logging the failure. This allows a single

“assert” to ensure that the application is on the correct page, followed by a bunch of “verify”

assertions to test form field values, labels, etc.

“waitFor” commands wait for some condition to become true (which can be useful for testing

Ajax applications). They will succeed immediately if the condition is already true. However, they

will fail and halt the test if the condition does not become true within the current timeout setting

(see the setTimeout action below).

3.9 Script Syntax

Selenium commands are simple, they consist of the command and two parameters. For example:

verifyText //div//a[2] Login

The parameters are not always required; it depends on the command. In some cases both are required,

in others one parameter is required, and in still others the command may take no parameters at all. Here

are a couple more examples:

goBackAndWait

verifyTextPresent Welcome to My Home Page

type id=phone (555) 666-7066

type id=address1 ${myVariableAddress}

The command reference describes the parameter requirements for each command.

Parameters vary, however they are typically:

• a locator for identifying a UI element within a page.

• a text pattern for verifying or asserting expected page content

• a text pattern or a selenium variable for entering text in an input field or for selecting an option

from an option list.

Locators, text patterns, selenium variables, and the commands themselves are described in considerable

detail in the section on Selenium Commands.

Selenium scripts that will be run from Selenium-IDE will be be stored in an HTML text file format.

This consists of an HTML table with three columns. The first column identifies the Selenium command,

the second is a target, and the final column contains a value. The second and third columns may not

require values depending on the chosen Selenium command, but they should be present. Each table row

represents a new Selenium command. Here is an example of a test that opens a page, asserts the page

title and then verifies some content on the page:

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<table>

<tr><td>open</td><td>/download/</td><td></td></tr>

<tr><td>assertTitle</td><td></td><td>Downloads</td></tr>

<tr><td>verifyText</td><td>//h2</td><td>Downloads</td></tr>

</table>

Rendered as a table in a browser this would look like the following:

open /download/

assertTitle Downloads

verifyText //h2 Downloads

The Selenese HTML syntax can be used to write and run tests without requiring knowledge of a programming

language. With a basic knowledge of selenese and Selenium-IDE you can quickly produce

and run testcases.

3.10 Test Suites

A test suite is a collection of tests. Often one will run all the tests in a test suite as one continuous

batch-job.

When using Selenium-IDE, test suites also can be defined using a simple HTML file. The syntax again

is simple. An HTML table defines a list of tests where each row defines the filesystem path to each test.

An example tells it all.

<html>

<head>

<title>Test Suite Function Tests - Priority 1</title>

</head>

<body>

<table>

<tr><td><b>Suite Of Tests</b></td></tr>

<tr><td><a href= "./Login.html" >Login</a></td></tr>

<tr><td><a href= "./SearchValues.html" >Test Searching for Values</a></td></tr>

<tr><td><a href= "./SaveValues.html" >Test Save</a></td></tr>

</table>

</body>

</html>

A file similar to this would allow running the tests all at once, one after another, from the Selenium-IDE.

Test suites can also be maintained when using Selenium-RC. This is done via programming and can be

done a number of ways. Commonly Junit is used to maintain a test suite if one is using Selenium-RC

with Java. Additionally, if C# is the chosen language, Nunit could be employed. If using an interpreted

language like Python with Selenium-RC than some simple programming would be involved in setting

up a test suite. Since the whole reason for using Selenium-RC is to make use of programming logic for

your testing this usually isn’t a problem.

3.11 Commonly Used Selenium Commands

To conclude our introduction of Selenium, we’ll show you a few typical Selenium commands. These

are probably the most commonly used commands for building tests.

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open opens a page using a URL.

click/clickAndWait performs a click operation, and optionally waits for a new page to load.

verifyTitle/assertTitle verifies an expected page title.

verifyTextPresent verifies expected text is somewhere on the page.

verifyElementPresent verifies an expected UI element, as defined by its HTML tag, is present on the

page.

verifyText verifies expected text and its corresponding HTML tag are present on the page.

verifyTable verifies a table’s expected contents.

waitForPageToLoad pauses execution until an expected new page loads. Called automatically when

clickAndWait is used.

waitForElementPresent pauses execution until an expected UI element, as defined by its HTML tag,

is present on the page.

3.12 Verifying Page Elements

Verifying UI elements on a web page is probably the most common feature of your automated tests.

Selenese allows multiple ways of checking for UI elements. It is important that you understand these

different methods because these methods define what you are actually testing.

For example, will you test that...

1. an element is present somewhere on the page?

2. specific text is somewhere on the page?

3. specific text is at a specific location on the page?

For example, if you are testing a text heading, the text and its position at the top of the page are probably

relevant for your test. If, however, you are testing for the existence of an image on the home page, and

the web designers frequently change the specific image file along with its position on the page, then you

only want to test that an image (as opposed to the specific image file) exists somewhere on the page.

3.13 Assertion or Verification?

Choosing between “assert” and “verify” comes down to convenience and management of failures.

There’s very little point checking that the first paragraph on the page is the correct one if your test

has already failed when checking that the browser is displaying the expected page. If you’re not on the

correct page, you’ll probably want to abort your test case so that you can investigate the cause and fix

the issue(s) promptly. On the other hand, you may want to check many attributes of a page without

aborting the test case on the first failure as this will allow you to review all failures on the page and take

the appropriate action. Effectively an “assert” will fail the test and abort the current test case, whereas a

“verify” will fail the test and continue to run the test case.

The best use of this feature is to logically group your test commands, and start each group with an

“assert” followed by one or more “verify” test commands. An example follows:

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Command Target Value

open /download/

assertTitle Downloads

verifyText //h2 Downloads

assertTable 1.2.1 Selenium IDE

verifyTable 1.2.2 June 3, 2008

verifyTable 1.2.3 1.0 beta 2

The above example first opens a page and then “asserts” that the correct page is loaded by comparing

the title with the expected value. Only if this passes will the following command run and “verify” that

the text is present in the expected location. The test case then “asserts” the first column in the second

row of the first table contains the expected value, and only if this passed will the remaining cells in that

row be “verified”.

3.13.1 verifyTextPresent

The command verifyTextPresent is used to verify specific text exists somewhere on the page. It

takes a single argument–the text pattern to be verified. For example:

Command Target Value

verifyTextPresent Marketing Analysis

This would cause Selenium to search for, and verify, that the text string “Marketing Analysis” appears

somewhere on the page currently being tested. Use verifyTextPresent when you are interested

in only the text itself being present on the page. Do not use this when you also need to test where the

text occurs on the page.

3.13.2 verifyElementPresent

Use this command when you must test for the presence of a specific UI element, rather then its content.

This verification does not check the text, only the HTML tag. One common use is to check for the

presence of an image.

Command Target Value

verifyElementPresent //div/p/img

This command verifies that an image, specified by the existence of an <img> HTML tag, is present on

the page, and that it follows a <div> tag and a <p> tag. The first (and only) parameter is a locator for

telling the Selenese command how to find the element. Locators are explained in the next section.

verifyElementPresent can be used to check the existence of any HTML tag within the page. You

can check the existence of links, paragraphs, divisions <div>, etc. Here are a few more examples.

Command Target Value

verifyElementPresent //div/p

verifyElementPresent //div/a

verifyElementPresent id=Login

verifyElementPresent link=Go to Marketing Research

verifyElementPresent //a[2]

verifyElementPresent //head/title

These examples illustrate the variety of ways a UI element may be tested. Again, locators are explained

in the next section.

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3.13.3 verifyText

Use verifyText when both the text and its UI element must be tested. verifyText must use a

locator. If you choose an XPath or DOM locator, you can verify that specific text appears at a specific

location on the page relative to other UI components on the page.

Command Target Value

verifyText //table/tr/td/div/p This is my text and it occurs right after the div inside the table.

3.14 Locating Elements

For many Selenium commands, a target is required. This target identifies an element in the content

of the web application, and consists of the location strategy followed by the location in the format

locatorType=location. The locator type can be omitted in many cases. The various locator

types are explained below with examples for each.

3.14.1 Locating by Identifier

This is probably the most common method of locating elements and is the catch-all default when no

recognized locator type is used. With this strategy, the first element with the id attribute value matching

the location will be used. If no element has a matching id attribute, then the first element with a name

attribute matching the location will be used.

For instance, your page source could have id and name attributes as follows:

1 <html>

2 <body>

3 <form id= "loginForm" >

4 <input name= "username" type= "text" />

5 <input name= "password" type= "password" />

6 <input name= "continue" type= "submit" value= "Login" />

7 </form>

8 </body>

9 <html>

The following locator strategies would return the elements from the HTML snippet above indicated by

line number:

• identifier=loginForm (3)

• identifier=password (5)

• identifier=continue (6)

• continue (6)

Since the identifier type of locator is the default, the identifier= in the first three examples

above is not necessary.

Locating by Id

This type of locator is more limited than the identifier locator type, but also more explicit. Use this when

you know an element’s id attribute.

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1 <html>

2 <body>

3 <form id= "loginForm" >

4 <input name= "username" type= "text" />

5 <input name= "password" type= "password" />

6 <input name= "continue" type= "submit" value= "Login" />

7 <input name= "continue" type= "button" value= "Clear" />

8 </form>

9 </body>

10 <html>

• id=loginForm (3)

Locating by Name

The name locator type will locate the first element with a matching name attribute. If multiple elements

have the same value for a name attribute, then you can use filters to further refine your location strategy.

The default filter type is value (matching the value attribute).

1 <html>

2 <body>

3 <form id= "loginForm" >

4 <input name= "username" type= "text" />

5 <input name= "password" type= "password" />

6 <input name= "continue" type= "submit" value= "Login" />

7 <input name= "continue" type= "button" value= "Clear" />

8 </form>

9 </body>

10 <html>

• name=username (4)

• name=continue value=Clear (7)

• name=continue Clear (7)

• name=continue type=button (7)

Note: Unlike some types of XPath and DOM locators, the three types of locators above allow Selenium

to test a UI element independent of its location on the page. So if the page structure and organization is

altered, the test will still pass. You may or may not want to also test whether the page structure changes.

In the case where web designers frequently alter the page, but its functionality must be regression tested,

testing via id and name attributes, or really via any HTML property, becomes very important.

Locating by XPath

XPath is the language used for locating nodes in an XML document. As HTML can be an implementation

of XML (XHTML), Selenium users can leverage this powerful language to target elements in their

web applications. XPath extends beyond (as well as supporting) the simple methods of locating by id