Selenium Interview Question - in detail - 2

domain of those tools. Most commercial tools focus on record and replay while Selenium emphasis on using Selenium IDE (Selenium record and replay) tool only to get acquainted with Selenium working and then move on to more mature Selenium libraries like Remote control (Selenium 1.0) and Web Driver (Selenium 2.0).

Though most commercial tools have built in capabilities of test reporting, error recovery mechanisms and Selenium does not provide any such features by default. But given the rich set of languages available with Selenium it very easy to emulate such features.

Question3:

What are the set of tools available with Selenium?

Answer:

Selenium has four set of tools – Selenium IDE, Selenium 1.0 (Selenium RC), Selenium 2.0 (WebDriver) and Selenium Grid. Selenium Core is another tool but since it is available as part of Selenium IDE as well as Selenium 1.0, it is not used in isolation.

Question 4:

Which Selenium Tool should I use?

Answer:

It entirely boils down to where you stand today in terms of using Selenium. If you are entirely new to Selenium then you should begin with Selenium IDE to learn Selenium location strategies and then move to Selenium 2 as it is the most stable Selenium library and future of Selenium. Use Selenium Grid when you want to distribute your test across multiple devices. If you are already using Selenium 1.0 than you should begin to migrate your test scripts to Selenium 2.0

Question 5:

What is Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Selenium IDE is a firefox plug-in which is (by and large) used to record and replay test is firefox browser. Selenium IDE can be used only with firefox browser.

Question 6:

Which language is used in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Selenium IDE uses html sort of language called Selenese. Though other languages (java, c#, php etc) cannot be used with Selenium IDE, Selenium IDE lets you convert test in these languages so that they could be used with Selenium 1.0 or Selenium 2.0

Question 7:

What is Selenium 1.0?

Answer:

Selenium 1.0 or Selenium Remote Control (popularly known as Selenium RC) is library available in wide variety of languages. The primary reason of advent of Selenium RC was incapability of Selenium IDE to execute tests in browser other than Selenium IDE and the programmatical limitations of language Selenese used in Selenium IDE.

Question 8:

What is Selenium 2.0?

Answer:

Selenium 2.0 also known as WebDriver is the latest offering of Selenium. It provides

·         better API than Selenium 1.0

·         does not suffer from java script security restriction which Selenium 1.0 does

·         supports more UI complicated UI operations like drag and drop

Question 9:

What are the element locators available with Selenium which could be used to locate elements on web page?

Answer:

There are mainly 4 locators used with Selenium –

·         html id

·         html name

·         XPath locator and

·         Css locators

Question 10:

What is Selenium Grid?

Answer:

Selenium grid lets you distribute your tests on multiple machines and all of them at the same time. Hence you can execute test on IE on Windows and Safari on Mac machine using the same test script (well, almost always). This greatly helps in reducing the time of test execution and provides quick feedback to stack holders.

Selenium IDE Questions

Question 11:

What are two modes of views in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Selenium IDE can be opened either in side bar (View > Side bar > Selenium IDE) or as a pop up window (Tools > Selenium IDE). While using Selenium IDE in browser side bar it cannot record user operations in a pop up window opened by application.

Question 12:

Can I control the speed and pause test execution in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Selenium IDE provides a slider with Slow and Fast pointers to control the speed of execution.

Question 13:

Where do I see the results of Test Execution in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Result of test execution can be views in log window in Selenium IDE –

Question 14:

Where do I see the description of commands used in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Commands of description can be seen in Reference section –

Question 15:

Can I build test suite using Selenium IDE?

Answer:

Yes, you can first record individual test cases and then group all of them in a test suite. Following this entire test suite could be executed instead of executing individual tests.

Question 16:

What verification points are available with Selenium?

Answer:

There are largely three type of verification points available with Selenium –

·         Check for page title

·         Check for certain text

·         Check for certain element (text box, drop down, table etc)

Question 17:

I see two types of check with Selenium – verification and assertion, what’s the difference between tow?

Answer:

·         A verification check lets test execution continue even in the wake of failure with check, while assertion stops the test execution. Consider an example of checking text on page, you may like to use verification point and let test execution continue even if text is not present. But for a login page, you would like to add assertion for presence of text box login as it does not make sense continuing with test execution if login text box is not present.

Question 18:

I don’t see check points added to my tests while using Selenium IDEL, how do I get them added to my tests?

Answer:

You need to use context menu to add check points to your Selenium IDE tests –

Question 19:

How do I edit tests in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

There are two ways to edit tests in Selenium IDE; one is the table view while other looking into the source code of recorded commands –

 Question 20:

What is syntax of command used in Selenium?

Answer:

There are three entities associated with a command –

·         Name of Command

·         Element Locator (also known as Target)

·         Value (required when using echo, wait etc)

Question 21:

There are tons of Selenium Command, am I going to use all of them

Answer:

This entirely boils down to operations you are carrying out with Selenium. Though you would definitely be using following Selenium Commands more often –

·         Open: opens a web page.

·         click/clickAndWait: click on an element and waits for a new page to load.

·         Select: Selects a value from a drop down value.

·         verifyTitle/assertTitle: verifies/asserts page title.

·         verify/assert ElementPresent: verifies/asserts presence of element, in the page.

·         verify/assert TextPresent verifies/asserts  expected text is somewhere on the page.

Question 22:

How do I use html id and name while using Selenium IDE

Answer:

Html id and name can be used as it is in selenium IDE. For example Google search box has name – “q” and id – “list-b” and they can be used as target in selenium IDE –

Question 23:

What is XPath? When would I have to use XPath in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

XPath is a way to navigate in xml document and this can be used to identify elements in a web page. You may have to use XPath when there is no name/id associated with element on page or only partial part of name/ide is constant.

Direct child is denoted with - /

Relative child is denoted with - //

Id, class, names can also be used with XPath –

·         //input[@name=’q’]

·         //input[@id=’lst-ib’]

·         //input[@class=’ lst’]

If only part of id/name/class is constant than “contains” can be used as –

·         //input[contains(@id,'lst-ib')]

Question 24:

What is CSS location strategy in Selenium?

Answer:

CSS location strategy can be used with Selenium to locate elements, it works using cascade style sheet location methods in which -

Direct child is denoted with – (a space)

Relative child is denoted with - >

Id, class, names can also be used with XPath –

·         css=input[name=’q’]

·         css=input[id=’lst-ib’] or input#lst-ib

·         css=input[class=’ lst’] or input.lst

If only part of id/name/class is constant than “contains” can be used as –

·         css=input[id*=' lst-ib ')]

Element location strategy using inner text

·         css = a:contains(‘log out’)

Question 25:

There is id, name, XPath, CSS locator, which one should I use?

Answer:

If there are constant name/id available than they should be used instead of XPath and CSS locators. If not then css locators should be given preference as their evaluation is faster than XPath in most modern browsers.

Question 26:

 I want to generate random numbers, dates as my test data, how do I do this in Selenium IDE?

Answer:

This can be achieved by executing java script in Selenium. Java script can be executed using following syntax –

            type

            css=input#s

            javascript{Math.random()}

And for date –

            type

            css=input#s

            javascript{new Date()}

Question 27:

Can I store result of an evaluation and use it later in my test?

Answer:

You can use “store” command to achieve this. You can save result of an evaluation in a variable and use it later in your Selenium IDE script. For example we can store value from a text box as following, and later use it to type it in another text box –

            storeText

            css=input#s

            var1

            type

            css=input#d

            ${var1}

Question 28:

I have stored result of an evaluation; can I print it in IDE to check its value?

Answer:

You can use echo command as following to check the stored value in Selenium IDE –

            storeText

            css=input#s

            var1

            echo

            ${var1}

           

Question 29:

Can I handle java script alert using Selenium?

Answer

You could use verify/assertAlert to check presence of alert on page. Since selenium cannot click on “Ok” button on js alert window, the alert itself does not appear on page when this check is carried out.

Question 30:

Selenium has recorded my test using XPath, how do I change them to css locator?

Answer

You can use drop down available next to Find in Selenium to change element locator used by Selenium –

Question 31:

I have written my own element locator, how do I test it?

Answer

You can use Find button of Selenium IDE to test your locator. Once you click on it, you would see element being highlighted on screen provided your element locator is right Else one error message would be displayed in log window.

Question 32:

I have written one js extension; can I plug it in Selenium and use it?

Answer

You could specify you js extension in “Options” window of Selenium IDE –

Question 33:

How do I convert my Selenium IDE tests from Selenese to another language?

Answer

You could use Format option of Selenium IDE to convert tests in another programming language –

Question 34:

I have converted my Selenium IDE tests to java but I am not able to execute themL, execution options as well as Table tab of Selenium IDE is disabledLL

Answer

This is because Selenium IDE does not support execution of test in any other language than Selenese (language of Selenium IDE). You can convert Selenium IDE in a language of your choice and then use Selenium 1.0 to execute these tests in that language.

Question 35:

I want to use only Selenese as my test script language but still want to execute tests in other browsers, how do I do that?

Answer

You can execute you Selenese test in another browser by specifying the “-htmlSuite” followed by path of your Selenese suite while starting the Selenium Server. Selenium Server would be covered in details in question about Selenium RC.

Question 36:

I have added one command in middle of list of commands, how do I test only this new command?

Answer

You can double click on newly added command and Selenium IDE would execute only that command in browser.

Question 37:

Can I make Selenium IDE tests begin test execution from a certain command and not from the very first command?

Answer

You could set a command as “start” command from context menu. When a command is set as start command then a small green symbol appears before command. Same context menu can be used to toggle this optio

Question 38:

Are there other tools available outside Selenium IDE to help me tests my element locators

Answer

You could XPath checker - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xpath-checker/  to test you XPath locators and Firefinder (a firebug add on) to test you css locators –

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firefinder-for-firebug/

Firefinder can also be used to test XPath locators.

Question 39:

What is upcoming advancement in Selenium IDE?

Answer

The latest advancement in Selenium IDE would be to have capabilities of converting Selenium IDE tests in Webdriver (Selenium 2.0) options. This would help generating quick and dirty tests for Selenium 2.0

Question 40:

How can I use looping option (flow control) is Selenium IDE

Answer

Selenese does not provide support for looping, but there is extension which could be used to achieve same. This extension can be download from here - http://51elliot.blogspot.com/2008/02/selenium-ide-goto.html

This extension can be added under “Selenium IDE Extension” section to use loop feature in Selenium IDE.

Question 41:

Can I use screen coordinate while using click command? I want to click at specific part of my element.

Answer

You would need to use clickAT command to achieve. clickAt command accepts element locator and x, y coordinates as arguments –

clickAt(locator, coordString)

Question 42:

How do I verify presence of drop down options using Selenium?

Answer

Use assertSelectOptions as following to check options in a drop down list –

assertSelectOptions

Question 43:

Can I get data from a specific html table cell using Selenium IDE?

Answer

Use storeTable command to get data from a specific cell in an html table, following example store text from cell 0,4 from an html table –

            storeTable

            css=#tableId.0.4

            textFromCell

Question 44:

I want to make Selenium IDE record and display css locator followed by other locators, is it possible to give high priority to css locator in Selenium IDE?

Answer

You can change default behavior of Selenium IDE > element locator preference by crating js file with following–

LocatorBuilders.order = ['css:name', 'css:id', 'id', 'link', 'name', 'xpath:attributes'];

And add this file under “Selenium IDE Extension” under Selenium Options.

Question 45:

My application has dynamic alerts which don’t always appear, how do I handle them?

Answer

If you want to simulate clicking “ok “ on alert than use – chooseOkOnNextConfirmation and if you want to simulate clicking “cancel” on alert than use - chooseCancelOnNextConfirmation ( )

Question 46:

Can I right click on a locator?

Answer

You can use command - contextMenu ( locator) to simulate right click on an element in web page.

Question 47:

How do I capture screen shot of page using Selenium IDE?

Answer

Use command – captureEntirePageScreenshot to take screen shot of page.

Question 48:

I want to pause my test execution after certain command.

Answer

Use pause command which takes time in milliseconds and would pause test execution for specified time – pause ( waitTime )

Question 49:

I used open command to launch my page, but I encountered time out errorL

Answer

This happens because open commands waits for only 30 seconds for page to load. If you application takes more than 30 sec then you can use “setTimeout ( timeout )” to make selenium IDE wait for specified time, before proceeding with test execution.

Question 50:

What’s the difference between type and typeKeys commands?

Answer

type command simulates enter operations at one go while typeKeys simulates keystroke key by key.

typeKeys could be used when typing data in text box which bring options (like Google suggestion list) because such operation are not usually simulated using type command.

  Selenium RC (Selenium 1.0) Questions

Question 51:

What is Selenium RC (also known as Selenium 1.0)?

Answer

Selenium RC is an offering from SeleniumHQ which tries to overcome following draw backs of Selenium IDE –

·         Able to execute tests only with Firefox

·         Not able to use full-fledged programming language and being limited to Selenese

Question 52:

What are the main components of Selenium RC?

Answer

Selenium RC has two primary components –

·         Client libraries which let you writes tests in language of your preference i.e. java, C#, perl, php etc

·         Selenium sever which acts as a proxy between browser and application under test (aut)

Question 53:

Why do I need Selenium Server?

Answer

Selenium uses java script to drives tests on a browser; Selenium injects its own js to the response which is returned from aut. But there is a java script security restriction (same origin policy) which lets you modify html of page using js only if js also originates from the same domain as html. This security restriction is of utmost important but spoils the working of Selenium. This is where Selenium server comes to play an important role.

Selenium server stands between aut and browser and injects selenium js to the response received from aut and then it is delivered to broswer. Hence browser believes that entire response was delivered from aut.

Question 54:

What is Selenium core? I have never used it!!!

Answer

Selenium core is the core js engine of Selenium which executes tests on browser, but because of same origin policy it needs to be deployed on app server itself, which is not always feasible. Hence Selenium core is not used in isolation. Selenium IDE as well as Selenium RC use Selenium core to drive tests while over coming same origin policy. In case of Selenium IDE tests are run in context of browser hence it is not hindered by same origin policy and with Selenium RC, Selenium Server over comes same origin policy.

Question 55:

Where is executable for Selenium RC, how do I install it?

Answer

Installation is a misnomer for Selenium RC. You don’t install Selenium RC you only add client libraries to you project. For example in case of java you add client driver and Selenium server jars in Eclipse or IntelliJ which are java editors.

Question 56:

I have downloaded Selenium Server and Client libraries, how do I start Selenium Server?

Answer

To start Selenium Server, you need to navigate to installation directory of Selenium server and execute following command –

            Java -jar .jar

This will start Selenium server at port 4444 by default.

Notice that you need to have java version 1.5 or higher available on your system to be able to use Selenium server.

Question 57:

On my machine port 4444 is not freeL . How do Use another port?

Answer

You can specify port while running the selenium server as –

                        Java -jar .jar –port 5555

           

Question 58:

I am new to programming; can Selenium generate sample code from my Selenese scripts?

Answer

You can first record tests in Selenium IDE and then use format option to convert them in a language of your choice.

Question 59:

Can I start Selenium server from my program instead of command line

Answer

If you are using java then you can start Selenium server using SeleniumServer class. For this you need to instantiate SeleniumServer and then call start() method on it.

            seleniumServer = new SeleniumServer();

     seleniumServer.start();

Question 60:

And how do I start the browser?

Answer

While using java you need to create instance of DefaultSelenium class and pass it four parameters –

selenium = new DefaultSelenium(serverHost, serverPort, browser, appURL);

          selenium.start();

Herein you need to pass,

host where Selenium server is running,

port of Selenium server,

browser where tests are to be executed and

application URL

Question 61:

I am not using java to program my tests, do I still have to install java on my system?

Answer

Yes, since Selenium server is written in java you need java to be installed on your system to be able to use it. Even though you might not be using java to program your tests.

Question 62:

What are the browsers offering from Selenium?

Answer

Following browsers could be used with Selenium –

  *firefox

  *firefoxproxy

  *pifirefox

  *chrome

  *iexploreproxy

  *iexplore

  *firefox3

  *safariproxy

  *googlechrome

  *konqueror

  *firefox2

  *safari

  *piiexplore

  *firefoxchrome

  *opera

  *iehta

  *custom

Here pi and proxy stand for proxy injection mode of Selenium server

Question 63:

During execution of tests I see two browser windows; one my test application another window shows commands being executed. Can I limit it to just one window?

Answer

Yes you can instruct Selenium Server to launch just one window. To do so you must specify –singleWindow while starting the Selenium server as –

            Java -jar .jar –singleWindow

Question 64:

My tests usually time outL. Can I specify bigger time out?

Answer

This usually happens while using open method with Selenium. One way to overcome this is to use setTimeOut method in your test script another way is to specify time out while starting Selenium server as following –

            Java -jar .jar –timeout

Question 65:

My system is behind corporate network, how do I specify my corporate proxy?

Answer

You can specify your corporate proxy as following while starting Selenium Server –

java -jar .jar -Dhttp.proxyHost= -Dhttp.proxyPort= -Dhttp.proxyUser= -Dhttp.proxyPassword=

Question 66:

I am switching domains in my test scripts. I move from “yahoo.com” to “google.com” and my tests encounter permission denied errorL

Answer

Changing domains is also a security restriction from java script. To overcome this you should start you Selenium server in proxy injection mode as –

java -jar .jar –proxyInjectionMode

Now Selenium server would act as proxy server for all the content going to test application

Question 67:

Can I execute my Selenese tests in another browser using Selenium server? I want to use only Selenese script my tests but still want to execute my test in non firefox browsers

Answer

Yes you can. To do so you need to specify following parameters while starting Selenium server –

            Browser

            Test domain

Path to html suite (you Selenese tests) and

Path to result

java -jar <>.jar -htmlSuite   

Question 68:

Can I log more options during test execution?

Answer

If you want to log browser side option during test execution then you should start Selenium server as following –

java -jar <>.jar –browserSideLog

Question 69:

Can I use Selenium RC on my UNIX/Mac also?

Answer

You can use Selenium RC on any system which is capable I running Java. Hence you can use it on RC and UNIX machines also

Question 70:

I want to test my scripts on new experimental browser, how do I do that?

Answer

You can specify *custom followed by path to browser to execute your tests on any browser while starting Selenium server

        *custom

Question 71:

I executed my tests cases but where is the test report?

Answer

Selenium RC itself does not provide any mechanism for test reporting. Test reporting is driven from the framework you use for Selenium. For example with java client driver of Selenium –

·         if you are using JUnit then you can use ant plug-in of JUnit to generate test report

·         if you are using TestNG then TestNG generates reports for you

Same reporting option is available with PHP unit and other client libraries you are using.

Question 72:

How do I use recovery scenarios with Selenium? I used to use them with QTP.

Answer

Power of recovery scenarios lies with the programming language you use. If you are using java then you can use Exception handling to overcome same. For example if you are reading data from a file and file is not available then you should keep you code statements in “try catch” block so that test execution could continue even in the wake of errors. Such mechanism entirely boils down the errors you want to recover from, while being able to continue with test execution.

Question 73:

How do I iterate through options in my test script.

Answer

You can use loop features of the programming language, for example you can use “for” loop in java as following to type different test data in a text box –

             // test data collection in an array

            String[] testData = {"test1", "test2", "test3"};

    

     // iterate through each test data

     for (String s : testData) {

              selenium.type(“elementLocator”, testData);     

     }

Question 74:

Can I execute java script from my tests? I want to count number of images on my page.

Answer

You can use method getEval() to evaluate java script. For example if you want to count number of images then you can pass following dom statement to getEval() as following –

            selenium.getEval("window.document.images.length;");

Or to get All anchor objects from a page

            selenium.getEval("window.document.getElementsByTagName(‘a’);");

Question 75:

Is there a way for me to know all available options when I start Selenium Server?

Answer

If you want to see all options available while starting Selenium server then you should use option “-h” while starting Selenium server -

            Java –jar .jar –h

It would display you all the options which you can use while starting the Selenium server.

Question 76:

I have created my own firefox profile; can I execute my test scripts on it

Answer

You may like to create your own firefox profile because Selenium always created a clean firefox profile while executing the tests and none of your FF settings and plug-in are considered with this clean profile. If you want to execute tests on FF with your settings then you should create custom profile for FF.

To be able to execute tests on a custom firefox profile you should specify its path while starting Selenium server. For example if your new profile is stored at “awesome location” in your directory then you should start Selenium server as following –

Java –jar .jar -firefoxProfileTemplate   "awesome location"

Question 77:

How do I capture server side log from Selenium server?

Answer

Start your Selenium Server as following –

java -jar .jar -log selenium.log

And Selenium would start logging server side info, i.e.

20:44:25 DEBUG [12] org.openqa.selenium.server.SeleniumDriverResourceHandler -

Browser 12345/:top frame1 posted START NEW

Question 78:

What are Heightened Privileges Browsers?

Answer

Firefox and IE have browser modes which are not restricted by java script’s same origin policy. These browsers are known as browsers with elevated security privileges. In case of Firefox it is known as chrome (It’s not the Google browser) and in case of IE it is known as iehta

Question 79:

My application has lots of pop up window, how do I work with them?

Answer

You need to know the Window ID of pop window to be able to work with them.

First you need to bring control on pop up window; execute selenium commands there, close the pop up window and then bring control back to main window. Consider following example where click on an image brings a pop up window –

                         // click on image brings pop up window

selenium.click("css=img");

         

// wait for pop up window identified using anchor target "ss"

          selenium.waitForPopUp("ss", getWaitPeriod());

          selenium.selectWindow("ss");

         

          // Some more operations on popup window

// Close the pop up window and Select the main application window    

          // Main window is selected by adding null as argument

          selenium.close();

          selenium.selectWindow("null");

          // continue with usual operation J

Question 80:

While trying to execute my tests with firefox I encountered following error – “Firefox Refused Shutdown While Preparing a Profile”. How do I solve it?

Answer

This message simply means that Selenium is not able to launch FF browser as it is already running on your system. To overcome this you should close all running instances of FF browser.

You should also check your system process if there is any hidden FF profile running which is not visible on screen. You should kill all FF processes and following this your tests should run smooth

Question 80:

While trying to execute my tests with firefox I encountered following error – “Firefox Refused Shutdown While Preparing a Profile”. How do I solve it?

Answer

This message simply means that Selenium is not able to launch FF browser as it is already running on your system. To overcome this you should close all running instances of FF browser.

You should also check your system process if there is any hidden FF profile running which is not visible on screen. You should kill all FF processes and following this your tests should run smooth

Question 81:

My application uses Ajax heavily how do I use Selenium RC to work with Ajax operations?

Answer

Ajax operations don’t reload a page like normal form submission but they make http requests behind the scene. You cannot use waitForPageToLoad for such operations and instead should use conditional wait for change in state of application. This could as well mean waiting for presence of an element before continuing with test operations. Consider following example in which type operation triggers Ajax operation which is followed by conditional wait for presence of a text box –

// type operation brings element “q” on screen without loading the page

selenium.type("elementLocator", "testData");

// conditional wait for element “q”

for (int second = 0;; second++) {

     if (second >= 60) fail("timeout");

try { if (selenium.isElementPresent("q")) break; } catch (Exception e) {}

          Thread.sleep(1000);

}

Question 82:

How do I upload a file using Selenium? I need to upload a word file during test execution.

Answer

If you are using Firefox then you can use “type” command to type in a File Input box of upload file. But type operation does not work with IE and you would have to use “Robot” class in java to work make file upload work.

Question 83:

Why do I get “permission denied” error during execution of Selenium tests?

Answer

The primary reason of permission denied error is same origin policy restriction from java script. To overcome this error you can use browsers with elevated security privileges. In case of Firefox you should use *chrome and in case of IE you should use *iehta as browser for working with Selenium.

Question 84:

I am not able to use “style” attribute to locate element with IE browserL

Answer

This is because IE expects attribute values to be in caps while other browsers expect it to be lower case letters. Hence

//tr[@style="background-color:yellow"] works with other browsers

//tr[@style="BACKGROUND-COLOUR:yellow"] works with IE

Question 85:

Are there any technical limitations while using Selenium RC?

Answer

Besides notorious “same origin policy” restriction from js, Selenium is also restricted from exercising anything which is outside browser. For example you cannot click on “Tools” option of your browser by just using Selenium.

Question 86:

But my tests need me to exercise objects outside browser, how do I achieve it?

Answer

You can use Robot class in java to achieve this, but it would be dirty solution even if you get through this.

Question 87:

Does Selenium have any offering for mobile browsers?

Answer

Selenium 2.0 (WebDriver) provides iPhone as well Android drivers which could be used to drive tests on mobile browsers

Question 88:

How does Selenium RC stand with other commercial tools?

Answer

The biggest advantage of Selenium RC is that it is absolutely free and has vast support of languages and browsers (almost always). Selenium lags when it comes to test reporting as Selenium does not have any in built reporting but this can be easily achieved using the programming language you decide to work on with Selenium. A bigger drawback is not being able to exercise objects which are outside browser window, for example clicking on folder on your desktop.

Question 89:

How does Selenium RC stand with other commercial tools?

Answer

The biggest advantage of Selenium RC is that it is absolutely free and has vast support of languages and browsers (almost always). Selenium lags when it comes to test reporting as Selenium does not have any in built reporting but this can be easily achieved

Question 90:

Can I just use Selenium RC to drive tests on two different browsers on one operating system without using Selenium Grid?

Answer

If you are using java client driver of Selenium then java testing framework TestNG lets you achieve this. You can set tests to be executed in parallel using “parallel=test” attribute and define two different tests, each using a different browser. Whole set up would look as  (notice the highlighted sections for browser in test suite)–

xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

DOCTYPE suite SYSTEM "http://testng.org/testng-1.0.dtd" >

<suite name="Test Automation" verbose="10">

     <parameter name="serverHost" value="localhost" />

     <parameter name="appURL" value="http://tamil.yahoo.com"/>

     <parameter name="proxyInjection" value="false" />

     <parameter name="serverPort" value="4444"/>

    

     <test name="Web Test1">

          <parameter name="browser" value="*chrome" />

          <parameter name="m" value="1">parameter>

<classes><class name="com.core.tests.TestClass1">class>classes>

     test>  

    

     <test name="Web Test2">

          <parameter name="browser" value="*iehta" />

          <parameter name="m" value="2">parameter>

<classes><class name="com.core.tests.TestClass1">class>classes>

     test>

    

suite>

Selenium Grid Questions

Question 91:

How do I cut down text execution time for my selenium tests? I want to execute my tests on a combination of different machines and browsers.

Answer

Selenium grid is your friendJ. Selenium grid lets you distribute tests across browsers and machines of your choice.

Question 92:

How does Selenium grid works?

Answer

Selenium grid uses combination of Selenium RC servers to execute tests in multiple browsers on different machine. Herein one Selenium RC server works as hub while other RC servers work as slaves, which could be controlled by hub. Whenever there is a request for a specific configuration for test execution then hub looks for a free RC slave server and if available then test execution begins on it. Once test execution is over then RC slave server would be available for next set of test execution.

Question 93:

Can you show me one diagram which describes functionality of Selenium grid?

Answer

In the following diagram Selenium hub is controlling three Selenium RC servers which are running for configurations –

·         IE on Windows

·         FF on Linux

·         FF on windows

Question 94:

Which jar files are needed to works with Selenium GRID?

Answer

You need to download and add following jar files to your Selenium set up to be able to work with Selenium. These jar files are –

·         selenium-grid-remote-control-standalone-.jar

·         selenium-grid-hub-standalone-.jar

·         selenium-grid-tools-standalone-.jar

Question 95:

How do I start Selenium Grid hub from my machine?

Answer

You should have “ant” set up on your system to be able to work with Grid. Once you have downloaded Selenium Grid, navigate to its distribution directory and execute following command -

ant launch-hub

This would start grid hub on port 4444 locally. You can verify this by navigating to following URL -             http://localhost:4444/console

Question 96:

How do I start Selenium Grid Slave Server from my system?

Answer

Navigate to download directory of Selenium gird and execute following command –

            ant launch-remote-control

This would launch remote control server at port 555. At this point if you navigate to http://localhost:4444/console then you would see this remote control listed under “Available Remote Controls”

Question 97:

How do I start Selenium grid slave on a different port than 5555?

Answer

You can use option “-Dport” followed by port number to start grid slave on a specific port.

ant -Dport=1111 launch-remote-control

ant -Dport=2222 launch-remote-control

Question 98:

How do I start grid RC slaves on a different system than my local host so than hub could control and contact a specific configuration?

Answer

You should specify following configuration while starting RC slave –

ant -Dport= -Dhost= -DhubURL= launch-remote-control

Herein “hostname” is the host where RC slave is running and “hub url” is URL of machine where grid hub is running.

Question 99:

How do I specify an environment while starting grid slave machine?

Answer

You could specify an environment using “-Denvironment” while starting a slave machine.

                ant -Denvironment=”Safari on Mac” launch-remote-control

Herein Safari on Mac is the environment which would be used to recognize configuration of RC slave.

Question 100:

How do I use machine specific configuration in my Selenium tests?

Answer

You could specify machine specific configuration while instantiating Selenium as –

Selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, **'Safari on Mac'**, 'http://yahoo.com');

And then you use this selenium instance to carryout operation on your web application.