Selenium Automation Testing has grown in popularity among testers due to the numerous benefits it provides. The first thing that comes to mind when we talk about automation testing is our preferred automation testing tool. However, because of its simplicity, accessibility, and convenience of use, it has won the hearts of many testers and developers. Selenium was created in 2004 to make the lives of automation testers easier, and it is now a favoured tool for many of them. So, without further ado, let's learn what Selenium automation testing is and how it may help with automation testing.
Selenium Components:
Selenium is important:
Did you know that testing is a key part of the software development process? Automation testing is a term you may have heard. Selenium might be something you have heard of. Selenium can be considered as an alternative to Automation testing. You may not have heard of Selenium. If so, you should read the entire article to learn more about Selenium's importance in the IT industry. This could change your career and help you to be a leader in the IT industry.
Software testing is an essential factory for any successful software product launch. For the product to be effective, it must be thoroughly tested before being released to customers. Although all software is properly tested, there are still defects. Software must be delivered without defects. All test engineers make every effort to find them before they are released to prevent future problems. Automation testing is gaining popularity due to its many benefits. Automation testing increases the efficiency and effectiveness of software.
Because of its many advantages, Selenium is a popular tool for automation testing. Selenium is preferred by testers over other tools due to its simplicity, availability, and ease-of-use. Selenium has made automated testing easier for testers. It is a popular tool for automation testers, and has been viewed by many.
What is Selenium:
Software Testing: What is it?
Testing can be described as evaluating or measuring the quality, reliability or performance of a product prior to making it available for normal usage. Most products, from small pins to spacecraft, are tested before being made available.
We live in an age of software-powered applications and machines. They must work exactly as we expect, every time. Is it possible they will work? Software Testing is the answer.
Software testing is the process of evaluating and checking the quality of software applications prior to their release to users. This testing can be done for both web and web applications, as many businesses are online or web-based. Why should web application testing be done?
Imagine that you order online and you cannot track your order's status. This could be caused by a bug in the backend code of the web application. To avoid errors or bugs in the code, it is important to test it. Selenium offers this type of testing for web applications.
Types of software testing:
1. Manual Testing
2. Automation Testing
1. Manual Testing
Software testing was traditionally done by Quality Assurance (QA), who write specific lines of code, which are called test cases. For every transaction that uses different attributes or datasets, these test cases must be run manually. Manual recording of the results, whether successful or not, is required. Manual testing has a major disadvantage: it is susceptible to human error and can result in poor product quality.
2. Automation Testing
Automation testing eliminates the need for manual testing. Instead, a tool is used that executes test cases and avoids manual interference. We can also configure test cases to be compatible with all operating systems, platforms, or web browsers. Automating a test case's outcome can be done by scheduling it for a specific time.
The Selenium Toolset includes the following applications:
The Selenium suite of tools consists of four key components, each with a unique approach to automated testing. Every software tester or developer selects tools from this list based on the organization's testing requirements.
RC Selenium (Remote Control):
The initial tool in the Selenium Suite was Selenium Core. However, due of the same-origin restriction, it was deprecated because it had some complications with cross-domain testing. As a result, Selenium Remote Control (Selenium RC) was established after Selenium core to address this issue. The cross-domain problem was solved with the help of RC. RC has an HTTP proxy server that deceives the browser into thinking that both the Selenium core and the Web app that is being tested are the same.
Selenium RC is split into two pieces that work together to solve the cross-domain problem:
1. Remote Selenium Server
2. Remote Client for Selenium
The main difficulty with RC was the length of time it took to run a test. It took longer since the Selenium server interacts through HTTP requests. Because of this shortcoming, RC is no longer widely used.
IDE for Selenium:
Selenium IDE (formerly Selenium Recorder) is a tool for recording, editing, debugging, and replaying functional tests. Selenium IDE is available as a Chrome browser extension as a Firefox browser add-on. You can record and export tests in any of the supported programming languages, such as Ruby, Java, PHP, Javascript, and others, using the Selenium IDE plugin.
Grid of Selenium:
The Selenium Grid architecture is built on a hub-node model. You can conduct concurrent test sessions across several browsers with Selenium Grid. Selenium scripts running on different nodes (a specific browser inside an operating system) are controlled by the hub, and test scripts running on different nodes can be written in any programming language.
To test many tests on remote machines, Selenium Grid was utilised in conjunction with RC. Grid works with both Webdriver and RC because people nowadays prefer Webdriver to RC.
Webdriver Selenium:
The most widely used tool is Selenium Webdriver, which is an upgraded version of Selenium RC. It accepts commands from clients and sends them to browsers via a client API. Simply defined, Selenium Webdriver is a browser-specific driver that facilitates the access and launch of many browsers. It gives you a way to interact with it.
Firefox Driver is used by Mozilla Firefox (Gecko Driver)
Chrome Driver is used by Google Chrome.
The Internet Explorer Driver is used by Internet Explorer.
Opera makes use of the Opera Driver.
Safari makes use of the Safari Driver.
HtmlUnit is a headless browser that uses the HTM Unit Driver to imitate browsers.
Client API for Selenium:
It is the most recent addition to the Suite of tools. Instead of creating test scripts in Selenese, you can use the Selenium Client API to build test scripts in a variety of programming languages. Java, JavaScript, C#, Ruby, and Python are all supported by the Selenium client API. These scripts can communicate with Selenium using the Client API's predefined commands and functions.
The Architecture of the Selenium Webdriver:
We'll use Selenium WebDriver to perform Selenium test cases because it's the most popular tool. Selenium WebDriver Architecture consists of the following components to comprehend the entire process on a very basic level:
WebDriver's architecture:
Browser Driver, Remote Driver, and Language Bindings are the three layers of the Selenium web driver.
WebDriver Architecture's Core Components:-
Language Bindings for Selenium Client Library:
Developers produce Selenium bindings / Client libraries to support a variety of programming languages. Use the Python bindings, for example, if you want to use the browser driver in Python. All of the bindings are available for download on the official website.
Over HTTP, JSON Protocol:
The data transport protocol JavaScript Object Notation is used to communicate data from a server to a web client. With data structures like Array and Object support, JSON makes it simple to write and read data. This wire protocol defines a RESTful web service that uses JSON over HTTP as a transport mechanism.
Drivers for Specific Browsers:
For Selenium bindings, each web browser has its own browser driver. The browser driver accepts orders from the server and provides them to the browser without affecting the browser's internal logic. For web automation, browser drivers are also particular to programming languages such as Ruby, C#, Java, and others.
When utilising Webdriver to run any test script, the steps are as follows:
Every Selenium command generates an HTTP request, which is then forwarded to the browser driver.
The HTTP request is received by a certain browser driver via the HTTP server.
The HTTP Server transmits all of the instructions for performing a function to the browser.
The test execution report is returned to the server, where it is forwarded to the Automation script by the HTTP server.
Browsers:
All major browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, are supported by Selenium Webdriver.
Installing Selenium on a Local Machine
Let's go over the procedures for setting up Selenium on your local machine and running a test in your browser.
Install a code editor or an integrated development environment (IDE).
For writing Automation scripts, we'll use the IntelliJ code editor.
Install the Java Runtime Environment on your local machine.
Java Development Kit is available for download.
All Java Selenium files should be downloaded and installed (Selenium Server Standalone)
Drivers for your browser should be installed. (Because we'll be automating on Chrome in this blog, we'll use Chrome Driver in this situation.)
Web Automation Selenium Script Example
Here is a sample automation script for automating the testing procedure on the local Chrome browser. We'll write the same thing in IntelliJ because we're using it as our code editor.
Script Example:
This code will open a website (https://hackr.io/), locate the "Signup/Login" element, click the Signup/Login button, and then navigate to the login page by searching for "Login." After that, you'll be redirected to the Hackr.io homepage after entering your credentials on the login page and clicking the login button.
Selenium Grid on the Cloud:
Running Selenium on a local workstation has a number of challenges, the most significant of which being the limited number of browsers available. Because you can only have one version of a browser installed on your local machine, if you need to test on a downgraded or upgraded version of that browser, you'll have to upgrade or downgrade the browser you already have installed. You can also only install a certain amount of browsers in the browser.
With the use of a cloud-based selenium grid, you can test cross-browser compatibility across all browsers, browser versions, operating systems, and resolutions. LambdaTest, SauceLabs, and BrowserStack are examples of online services that provide selenium grid that may enable you run cross-browser tests on a cloud grid of various browser-OS combinations.