WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF SELENIUM?

Selenium has following components:

• Selenium IDE

• Selenium Remote Control (Selenium RC)

• Webdriver

• Selenium Grid 

Now Selenium RC and Webdriver had merged to Selenium 2.0 to enhance the user experience of automation testing.

WHAT ARE THE SELENIUM COMMON COMMANDS?

• 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 it’s 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.

WHAT IS SELENIUM WEBDRIVER?

Descriptions of Selenium Webdriver are:

• Selenium 2.0 is introduced as Webdriver API.

• A enhanced solution to cross browser testing.

• Better features for Ajax testing. 

• Handling multiple frames, multiple browser windows, popups, and alerts.

• Framework is very easy to build in Webdriver.

ELEMENT LOCATORS IN SELENIUM

ID (id) Locator: Select the element with the specified @id attribute.
For example, 

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1. id=name  

is the id locator in below html code:

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1. <input type="text" name="name" id="name" />  

NAME (name) Locator: Select the first element with the specified @name attribute.

For example,

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1. namename=name  

is the name locator in below html code:

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1. <input type="text" name="name" id="name" />  

CSS (cssSelectorSyntax) Locator: Select the element using css selectors.
For example,

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1. css=a[href="#id3"]  

is the css locator in below html code:

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1. <a href="#id3">Test Link 3</a>  

DOM (javascriptExpression) Locator: Find an element using JavaScript traversal of the HTML Document Object Model. DOM locators must begin with "document.".
For example,

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1. dom=document.forms['myForm'].myName  

is the dom locator in below html code:

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1. <form name="myForm" id="myForm" action="#" method="post">  
2.   
3. <input type="text" name=" myName " id="myName" />  
4.   
5. </form>  

Xpath (xpathExpression) Locator: Locate an element using an XPath expression.
For example,

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1. xpath=//table[@id='table1']//tr[2]/td[2]  

is the xpath locator of “link22” element in below html code:

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1. <table id="table1">  
2.   
3. <tbody>  
4.   
5. <tr><td>link11</td><td>link12</td></tr>  
6.   
7. <tr><td>link21</td><td>link22</td></tr>  
8.   
9. </tbody>  
10.   
11. </table>  

ABSOLUTE XPATH LOCATOR

This locator is start with root element.
For example, “xpath=//table[@id='table1']/tr/td” is the absolute xpath locator for “link11” element in below html code:

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1. <table id="table1" border="1" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="10">  
2.   
3. <tbody>  
4.   
5. <tr><td>link11</td><td>link12</td></tr>  
6.   
7. <tr><td>link21</td><td>link22</td></tr>  
8.   
9. </tbody>  
10.   
11. </table>  

RELATIVE XPATH LOCATOR

This locator is start with current element.
For example, “xpath=//td[4]” is the relative xpath locator for “link22” element in below html code:

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1. <table id="table1" border="1" cellspacing="10" cellpadding="10">  
2.   
3. <tbody>  
4.   
5. <tr><td>link11</td><td>link12</td></tr>  
6.   
7. <tr><td>link21</td><td>link22</td></tr>  
8.   
9. </tbody>  
10.   
11. </table>  

XPATH LOCATOR’S EXAMPLE IN SELENIUM

We have already learned about Xpath locator in previous posts.

Following are different example of Xpath locator:

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1. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">  
2. <table id="table1"><o:p></o:p></div>  
3. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">  
4. <form method="POST"  
5. action="#"><o:p></o:p></div>  
6. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">  
7. <tbody><o:p></o:p></div>  
8. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">  
9. <tr><td>Name: </td><td><input  
10. type="text" id="name" size="20"></td></tr><o:p></o:p></div>  
11. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">  
12. <tr><td>Email Address: </td><td><input  
13. type="text" name="email" size="20"></td></tr><o:p></o:p></div>  
14. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">  
15. <tr><td><input  
16. type="submit" value="Submit"  
17. class="button"></td></tr><o:p></o:p></div>  
18. <div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">  
19. </tbody><o:p></o:p></div>  
20. </table>  

Xpath Locator based on id of element:
For example,

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1. xpath=//input[@id='name']  

is the xpath based on id for Name textbox in above html code.

Xpath Locator based on name of element: 
For example,

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1. xpath=//input[@name='email']  

is the xpath based on name for Email Address textbox in above html code.

Xpath Locator based on class of element: 
For example,

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1. xpath=//input[@class='button']  

is the xpath based on class for Submit button in above html code.

Xpath Locator based on value of element: 
For example,

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1. xpath=//input[@value='Submit ']  

is the xpath based on value for Submit button in above html code.

Xpath Locator based on containing text by element: 
For example,

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1. xpath=//p[contains(text(),'Name')]  

is the xpath based containing text for Name label in below html code.