book

Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices

Name: Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices
Author: Dima Kovalenko
ISBN: 9781783982707

by Dima Kovalenko

September 2014

Intermediate to advanced

270 pages

6h 1m

English

Packt Publishing

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Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices
Table of Contents
Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices
Credits
Foreword
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and moreWhy subscribe?Free access for Packt account holders
Preface
What this book covers

What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example codeErrataPiracyQuestions
1. Writing the First Test
Choosing Selenium over other toolsRight tool for the right jobPriceOpen sourceFlexibility
The Record and Playback pattern
Advantages of the Record and Playback patternDisadvantages of the Record and Playback pattern
Getting started with the Selenium IDE
Installing the Selenium IDERecording our first testSaving the test
Understanding Selenium commands
Reading Selenese
Comparing Ruby to Selenese
Comparing Selenium commands in multiple languages
Writing a Selenium test in Ruby
Introducing Test::UnitIntroducing assertsInteractive test debugging
Summary
2. The Spaghetti Pattern
Introducing the Spaghetti patternAdvantages of the Spaghetti patternDisadvantages of the Spaghetti pattern
Testing the product review functionality
Starting a product review testLocating elements on the pageUsing a browser's element inspectorIntroducing locator strategiesUsing advanced locator strategiesUsing the absolute pathUsing the relative pathWriting locator strategy codeUsing chained selector strategy methodsUsing the CSS selectorUsing XPathImplementing clicks and assertionsDuplicating the product review test
Reasons for failures
The Chain Linked pattern
The Big Ball of Mud pattern
Summary
3. Refactoring Tests
Refactoring tests
The DRY testing pattern
Advantages of the DRY testing patternDisadvantages of the DRY testing patternMoving code into a setup and teardownRemoving duplication with methodsRemoving external test goalsUsing a method to fill out the review formReviewing the refactored code
The Hermetic test pattern
Advantages of the Hermetic test patternDisadvantages of the Hermetic test patternRemoving test-on-test dependenceUsing timestamps as test dataExtracting the remaining common actions to methodsCreating a new review with a single method callReviewing the test-on-test dependency refactoring
Creating generic DRY methods
Refactoring with generic methods
The random run order principle
Advantages of the random run order principleDisadvantages of the random run order principle
Summary
4. Data-driven Testing
Data relevance versus data accessibility
Hardcoding input data
Hiding test data from testsChoosing the test environment
Introducing test fixtures
Parsing fixture dataUsing fixture data in the testsUsing fixtures to validate productsTesting the remaining productsMultiple test modelsA single test modelImplementing multiple test modelsMaking test failures more expressive
Using an API as a source of fixture data
Using data stubs
The default values pattern
Advantages of the default values patternDisadvantages of the default values patternMerging the default values pattern and the faker libraryImplementing faker methodsUpdating the comment test to use default values
Summary
5. Stabilizing the Tests
Engineering the culture of stabilityRunning fast and failing fastRunning as often as possibleKeeping a clean and consistent environmentDiscarding bad code changesMaintaining a stable test suite
Waiting for AJAX
Testing without AJAX delaysUsing explicit delays to test AJAX formsImplementing intelligent delays
Waiting for JavaScript animations
The Action Wrapper pattern
Advantages of the Action Wrapper patternDisadvantages of the Action Wrapper patternImplementing the Action Wrapper pattern
The Black Hole Proxy pattern
Advantages of the Black Hole Proxy patternDisadvantages of the Black Hole Proxy patternImplementing the Black Hole Proxy pattern
Test your tests!
Summary
6. Testing the Behavior
Behavior-driven DevelopmentAdvantages of BDDDisadvantages of BDD
Testing the shopping cart behavior
Describing shopping cart behaviorWriting step definitionsIs BDD right for my project?
Introducing Cucumber
Feature filesStep definition filesThe configuration directoryCucumber.ymlenv.rb
Running the Cucumber suite
The write once, test everywhere pattern
Advantages of the write once, test everywhere patternDisadvantages of the write once, test everywhere pattern
Testing a mobile site
Updating the Selenium wrapperMoving step definition filesUpdating the Cucumber profile and tagging testsRunning and fixing incompatible steps
Testing the purchase API
Summary
7. The Page Objects Pattern
Understanding objectsDescribing a literal objectObject propertiesObject actionsObjects within objectsDescribing a programming objectDescribing a web page with objects
The Page Objects pattern
Advantages of the Page Objects patternDisadvantages of the Page Objects pattern
Creating a Page Objects framework
Creating a page super classImplementing sidebar objectsImplementing the SidebarCart classAdding Self Verification to pagesImplementing individual page classesIncreasing the number of sidebar objects as the website grows
Running tests with the Page Objects framework
Using Page Objects in the Test::Unit frameworkUsing Page Objects in different testing frameworksLooking at the Cucumber implementationLooking at the RSpec implementation
The test tool independence pattern
Advantages of the test tool independenceDisadvantages of the test tool independence
The right way to implement Page Objects
Making pages smarter than testsMaking tests smarter than pagesUsing modules instead of inheritancePlacing logic in Page Objects
Summary
8. Growing the Test Suite
Strategies for writing test suitesDifferent types of testsThe smoke test suiteThe money path suiteNew feature growth strategyBug-driven growth strategyThe regression suiteThe 99 percent coverage suite
Continuous Integration
Managing the test environments and nodesDeploying new buildsCI environment managementBuild node managementConfiguration management systemVirtualizationSelenium GridUnderstanding standalone and grid modesJsonWire protocolStandalone modeGrid modeInstalling Selenium GridUsing Selenium GridSelenium Grid ExtrasChoosing the CI toolDecoupling tests from tools
Frequently Asked Questions
How to test on multiple browsers?ProblemPossible solutionsLocalhost testingSetting up Selenium GridSetting up SauceLabs GridWhich programming language to write tests in?Should we use Selenium to test the JS functionality?ProblemPossible solutionWhy should I use a headless browser?Possible solutionPhantomJSWhich BDD tool should I use on my team?ProblemPossible solutionsCan I use Selenium for performance testing?ProblemPossible solutions
Summary
A. Getting Started with Selenium
Setting up the computerUsing Command Line InterfaceUsing the terminal on WindowsUsing MS-DOSUsing PowerShellUsing the terminal emulatorUsing the terminal on Mac OS XUsing the terminal on LinuxConfiguring the Ruby runtime environmentInstalling RubyInstalling the selenium-webdriver gemInstalling Firefox
Understanding test class naming
Naming filesNaming classesUnderstanding the namespaceShowing object inheritance
Summary
Index

Content preview from Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices

Chapter 5. Stabilizing the Tests

	"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."
	--Matthew 7:25, King James Version

When the test suite becomes large enough, our job becomes less about the fixing every flaky test. In fact, it centers on engineering a solution that will prevent all similar flaky behavior from happening.

In this chapter, we will give our tests a good solid foundation that will prevent a lot of instability in the long run. We waited until this chapter to start fixing the behavior that drives anyone who writes web tests insane, because we had to first build up a foundation of good data management and coding skills. These skills are crucial ...

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Selenium Framework Design in Data-Driven Testing

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Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices

by Dima Kovalenko

Chapter 5. Stabilizing the Tests

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