I am an Automation Engineer, I am currently trying to create test cases for a webpage that are sustainable ( that I can run at a later time and have still pass)
Here is my problem:
I am trying to select multiple web buttons that have the same exact class name. Now I can 'select' these buttons but these are only temporary x paths that are subject to change.
I need UNIQUE ID's (or some way of distinguishing them) for the same web elements. The only difference in the x paths are:
HTML format code that I can find each button, however if one button is moved my tests will fail.
HTML code that is the class name + nth of the button. But again my tests will fail if a button is taken out of the webpage.
//*[#id="tenant-details-accordion"]/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[1]/div/a/div
//*[#id="tenant-details-accordion"]/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div/a/div
//*[#id="tenant-details-accordion"]/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[3]/div/a/div
^^The above code is how I currently find each button with Selenium
If I copy each classes x path this is what I get
<div class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__dateControl___2nYAL"><a tabindex="0"><div class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__icon___2z6Ak null"></div><!-- react-text: 392 -->Set +<!-- /react-text --></a></div>
<div class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__dateControl___2nYAL"><a tabindex="0"><div class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__icon___2z6Ak null"></div><!-- react-text: 386 -->Set +<!-- /react-text --></a></div>
<div class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__dateControl___2nYAL"><a tabindex="0"><div class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__icon___2z6Ak null"></div><!-- react-text: 398 -->Set +<!-- /react-text --></a></div>
I have talked to the Development team about this issue however they tell me that assigning Unique ID's to these web elements is a big no-no. (something to do with globalization of the project when we go to production) Even if they did assign Unique Id's they tell me that they would have to strip them before the project can be sent to production. Which ultimately would render my tests useless in the end...
I now come to Stack Overflow for help, everything I look up online cannot give me an answer, however this does seem to be a valid question between QA and Development departments.
Is there a way to assign Id's to a web element so that a tester using selenium can identify them and yet it will not affect a Developers ability to use that element through an entire project?
Edit:
With the framework that my company uses, I am not actually writing any code in selenium. I save the Xpath to an object and then later in a manual test call that object with a pre-existing method. I can ONLY select Xpaths to be saved in an object.
I'll talk to Dev later to have them explain the big 'no-no' so that I may be able to communicate that with all of you..Thank you for your time and input
For example:
BirthDateSet= someXpath
Click() using {BirthDateSet}
Here are some pictures to help give you a visual
You can simplify your XPathto make it less sensitive to possible changes in DOM:
//div[#class="src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__icon___2z6Ak null"][N] # Where N is button index
If this part 2z6Ak of class name is dinamically generated, try:
//div[starts-with(#class, "src-js-components-DateControl-___DateControl__icon___")][N] # Where N is button index
Another way of reaching to the required button using xpath is following:
//*[#id='tenant-details-accordion']/descendant::div[contains(#class, 'DateControl__icon')][1]
Above xpath should be able to select the first occurring button. Similarly, for the second occurring button, the xpath will become:
//*[#id='tenant-details-accordion']/descendant::div[contains(#class, 'DateControl__icon')][2]
Hence, you can continue to replace the predicate([2]) based on occurrence level of the required button on page.
you can ask devs to add attribute to those buttons
so instead of:
<button class="common_class_name">
<button class="common_class_name">
<button class="common_class_name">
for each button you will see
<button class="common_class_name" test-id="uniqueAttributeForButton1">
<button class="common_class_name" test-id="uniqueAttributeForButton2">
<button class="common_class_name" test-id="uniqueAttributeForButton3">
etc
And in your tests you can find those buttons using css selector
e.g. C# code:
var buttonLocator = "[test-id=\"uniqueAttributeForButton1\"]";
WebElement button = driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector(buttonLocator));
if devs doesnt want to add unique IDs or attributes (it's weird why they don't want to do that) you could try something like this:
//return div class 'col-sm-4' which contain text 'Activation Date'
var parentDiv = driver.FindElement(By.XPath("//div[contains(#class, 'col-sm-4') and contains(., 'Activation Date')]"));
//should return div with icon you want e.g. Click
var childElement = parentDiv.FindElement(By.CssSelector(".DateControl__icon"));
childElement.Click();
You can go with the nth approach to find your unique element or with another, that won't solve your real problem which is that your colleague developers aren't cooperating with you. The automated tests are supposed to be (among other things) a service for the developers to know they haven't broken anything as fast as possible, but if they aren't giving any effort, then WHY should you invest in it at all..?
They probably won't even look at the results. Especially when your locators are in the form of div[2]/div[3]... which would break very often and you'll lose their trust in the automation.
I'm no front-end expert but I've seen enterprise products in production with G10N and L10N and other long words, that have id's in their HTML, so if I were you I'd dig deeper to understand why? that big no-no, which sounds very odd to me...
So you asked the wrong question, it should be something like ~ How to add unique id's to the HTML using React in a global web application? and the ones who should be asking it are the developers.
As a side note, as many people tend to think, automation is not mainly about moving manual tests to automated it also finds "bugs" in the communication inside the company. To quote a great blog post on this subject:
Counter-intuitively, the bigger obstacles when developing automation
are either low priority bugs or even things that are not bugs
whatsoever. These obstacles can be symptoms of a bad design, bad
development practices and even symptoms of inefficient communication
patterns in the organization (that are usually caused by the
organizational structure! Conway’s law is a classic example for this).
Good luck!
EDIT:
Thanks for the code.. So if you look at your code, you can see that although what you're after have similar attributes, there are elements in the page that would allow you to identify what you're after. So let's say you want the SET link after Birth Date, then use:
//div[contains(text(),'Birth Date')]/div/a/div
So to reuse this xpath, just replace the text String.format("//div[contains(text(),'%s')]/div/a/div", labelName);
OLD: if you want to temporarily assign the elements an attribute, I believe you can do that through javascript element.setAttribute() which you can run through the executeScript() function.
Don't the buttons have text? Are you saying that the buttons swap places with one another? or don't you want to use the index of the buttons?
I understand you want to select the "Set +" buttons, correct?
If so you can try to find all buttons under the #id="tenant-details-accordion" element with a specific text like that:
//*[#id="tenant-details-accordion"]//*[text()='Set +']
Related
Example of the HTML of a dropdown element:
<div aria-owns="ember-basic-dropdown-content-ember1234" tabindex="0" data-ebd-id="ember1234-trigger" role="button" id="ember1235" class="ember-power-select-trigger ember-basic-dropdown-trigger ember-view"> <!---->
<span class="ember-power-select-status-icon"></span>
</div>
The xpath and CSS selector also contain the same ember id.
xpath : //*[#id="ember1235"]
css selector : #ember1235
The ember id would change from id="ember1235" to say, id="ember1265" when there is a change in the UI.
I am using id to locate the element. But every time it changes I need to modify the code. Is there any other attribute I could use for Ember JS UI elements?
There is quite a lot to discuss in your question but hopefully we will have a good answer for you #PriyaK
The first thing to mention is that Ember IDs may not be the best method to select an element in the DOM. As you have already mentioned, they can change from time to time and also it doesn't really give you a great semantic thing to select in your selenium test so it might seem a bit out of context when looking back.
One thing that you could try is to either pass a class to the ember-power-select component (the one that provides the HTML that you used in your example) and use that to select the element, something like:
<PowerSelect
#class="my-fancy-class"
as |name|
>
{{name}}
</PowerSelect>
Then you should be able to select the selected value by using the CSS selector .my-fancy-class span (because the component outputs the selected value in a span)
We just tried this in an example app but it didn't actually work 🤔 Never fear, you can also do something like this and it should work with the same selector as before:
<div class="my-fancy-class">
<PowerSelect as |name|>
{{name}}
</PowerSelect>
</div>
This is fine, but there are also a few issues using classes for selectors in tests. One example of a problem that might crop up is that your tests might all suddenly stop working if you did a style refactor and changed or removed some of the classes on your elements. One technique that has become popular in the Ember community is to use data-test- attributes on your DOM nodes like this:
<div data-test-my-fancy-select>
<PowerSelect
#class="my-fancy-class"
as |name|
>
{{name}}
</PowerSelect>
</div>
which can then be accessed by the following selector: [data-test-my-fancy-select] span. This is great for a few reasons! Firstly it separates the implementation of your application and tests from your styling and avoids the issue I described above. The second benefit of this method is that using what #Gokul suggested in the comments, the ember-test-selectors package, you can make use of these data-test- selectors in your development and test environments but they will be automatically removed from your production build. This is great to keep your DOM clean in production but also, depending on the size of your application, could save you a reasonable amount of size in your templates on aggregate.
I know you say that you are using selenium for your testing but it's also worth mentioning that if you're using the built-in Ember testing system you will be able to make use of some testing helpers that addons may provide you. ember-power-select is one of those addons that provides specific testing helpers and you can read more about it in their documentation: https://ember-power-select.com/docs/test-helpers
I hope this answers any questions you had!
This question was answered as part of "May I Ask a Question" Season 3 Episode 1. If you would like to see us discuss this answer in full you can check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DAJXUucnQU
Protractor 1.7.0 has introduced a new feature: a new locator by.deepCss which helps to find elements within a shadow DOM.
Which use cases does it cover? When would you want to reach elements in the shadow DOM?
The reason I ask the question is that I'm missing on the motivational part of the matter - I thought about protractor mainly as a high-level framework that helps to mimic real user interactions. Accessing shadow trees sounds like a very deep down technical thing and why would you want to do it is confusing me.
To answer your question, here's a related question: "what information does shadow dom provide that looking at raw html does not?"
The following snippet creates a shadom dom (view via chrome or firefox):
<input type="date">
If you click on the arrow, a pop up opens with all the dates, and you can select it.
Now imagine you are building a hotel reservation app and you made a custom shadow dom date picker, where it would black out (and not allow user to select) dates when rooms are unavailable.
Looking at the raw html, you see <input type="date">, and the value/dates that a user selected. However, how would you test that the black out UI is working as intended? For that you would need to examine the shadow dom, where the pop up resides.
The reason I ask the question is that I'm missing on the motivational part of the matter - I thought about protractor mainly as a high-level framework that helps to mimic real user interactions. Accessing shadow trees sounds like a very deep down technical thing and why would you want to do it is confusing me.
Doesn't seem so in this website that shows an introduction to shadow DOM. It says that:
Shadow DOM separates content from presentation thereby eliminating naming conflicts and improving code expression.
Shadow DOM mainly helps with separating content to avoid naming conflicts and improving your code expression, making it neater and better (I assume). I am sorry to say that I don't actually use Selenium, so here is a website with plenty more information: http://webcomponents.org/polyfills/shadow-dom/
I hope this helps you!
I am using selenium to test a page with multiple portlets made by liferay.
Every portlet is having a save button with the same id, it use the iframe id of the portlet to differentiate between the buttons.
How can I write a code in selenium that can understand which button I mean??
You need to use driver.switchTo().frame(IFrameElement). Any kind of IFrame you need to switch in/out of.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/9943605/1769273
You can use xpath or css selectors to find children dependent on parents.
paste your html and we can provide examples
Does this mean your portlets are all embedding iframes? Typically portlets just render HTML snippets into the same documents. In this case, your implementation would be considered flawed: Portlets must not use IDs that can conflict. E.g. you should not render
<input type="submit" id="save"/>
but
<input type="submit" id="<portlet:namespace/>save"/>
or similar - make sure the id is unique, as it ends up in the same HTML-DOM which - by specification - assumes ids are unique.
There are other methods to create unique ids, but keep in mind: If you come up with the prefix yourself, per portlet, someone might add the same portlet to the page twice and you can end up with the same id even though all different portlets have unique ids.
If you are indeed rendering many different iframes from your portlets, you can disregard this answer or take it as a suggestion to make better use of the portal environment by changing the implementation.
I am new to test automation and I need help of experts who can help me in proceeding with the current difficulties.
Currently there is a web browser application which is tested manually based on the test cases in an excel.
There is also an automation framework also which uses Selenium and uses WebDriver and runs on Google Chrome.
The test cases(in excel) used for manual are taken up and another set of test cases(in excel) are written which is nothing but the div elements and the action which the framework should do like click or find which the framework will understand.
1.First I need to manually find out each div id for all the elements and put it in excel which the framework understands.How can I avoid this?
2.Also a new version of the application has come in which all the div id for the elements differ.Hence its pain to note the div id again and put them in excel.
How can I write the test cases only once for each case even if the div changes?
Please help.
Follow a design pattern, e.g. Page Objects
If ids will be changed try to use css and xpath selectors that do not stick to ids. The main idea is to specify such selectors that allow tests to find elements on the page using knowledge by their parents, tag names, other attributes that won't change (class and so on).
In my application, it has several tabs, say 'AAA','ABC','ADF'; I need to automate the click on tab 'ABC'.
Those tabs have ids and they are 'tab1','tab2','tab3'. I can done this easily by using ids. but i don't want to use this because those tabs will change time to time. so I need to use the name in the tab, because it is unique.
Below is my tag:
<a id="tab2" class="current" onclick="expandcontent('sc2', this);" href="#"> ABC </a>
If this is the case, you will probably need to fall back to XPath and perform text-based searches, for instance:
//a[text()='ABC']
Though, I'd advise you work with your development team to have consistent ID's. Text based matching is fine, but when you start to use older browsers you'll notice it really really slows down the tests.
However, you can also use the .LinkText and .PartialLinkText selectors in your language API's - there should be an implementation of those selectors in each API (C#, Ruby, Python etc). The catch here is this will be for a (anchor) elements only. However, providing that is the only type of elements this needs to be done by, you can get away with using this instead of XPath.
As Arran mentioned, you are likely best off searching for the tab names using XPath but, you can also use FindBy as well. An example of this would be:
#FindBy(css=<the CSS value for the tab>) private WebElement pageTab2;
#FindBy(id="tab2") private WebElement pageTab2;
I can only agree with what Arran also mentioned about your developers using more relevant naming conventions as well. The easier they make your job, the more you can do to make their lives easier too.
Simplest answer will be Use..."link=ABC" or link=" ABC " (it there are leading and trailing spaces).
The simplest approach would be to use X paths to find your tabs.
When you are starting out there are two helpful tools to help you find X paths. Download Mozilla Firefox and get these two add-ons:
Web Driver Element Locator-After downloading you can right click a web element and select X path.
Selenium IDE-This is a recorder and will give you the X paths or CSS of each web element you interact with.
I would recommend starting with these tools to help you out since you are just starting out.
As for your question:
I would recommend using what #Arran said...
//a[text()='ABC']
'a'-will search the entire page for whatever text you have in single quotes ''
If you Right Click the element or Tab and select Inspect. You will then be looking through the back-end of the page for classes or div that help you identify each different element.
xpath=//a[contains(#class,"current") and contains(#text,"ABC")]