(<i>Above: [my_first_test.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/examples/my_first_test.py) from [examples/](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/examples) running in demo mode, which adds JavaScript for highlighting page actions.</i>)<br/>
(<i>Requires **[Git and Python/Pip](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/install_python_pip_git.md)** [<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/python-2.7,_3.x-22AADD.svg" alt="Python versions" />](https://www.python.org/downloads/). Optionally, you may want to use a [Python virtual environment](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/virtualenv_instructions.md) to isolate Python dependencies between projects.</i>)
* (Depending on your user permissions, you may need to add ``--user`` to the command if you're not inside a [Python virtual environment](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/virtualenv_instructions.md), or use "[sudo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo)" on a UNIX-based OS if you're getting errors during installation.)
If installing SeleniumBase from [PyPI](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/seleniumbase) [<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/pypi-seleniumbase-22AAEE.svg" alt="pypi" />](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/seleniumbase), use:
#### Download a web driver to your System Path or to the [seleniumbase/drivers](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/seleniumbase/drivers) folder:
SeleniumBase can download a driver to the seleniumbase/drivers folder with the ``install`` command:
* (You need a different web driver for each web browser you want to run automation on: ``chromedriver`` for Chrome, ``edgedriver`` for Edge, ``geckodriver`` for Firefox, ``operadriver`` for Opera, and ``iedriver`` for Internet Explorer.)
SeleniumBase automatically handles common WebDriver actions such as spinning up web browsers and saving screenshots during test failures. (<i>[Read more about customizing test runs](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/customizing_test_runs.md).</i>)
Python methods that start with ``test_`` will automatically be run when using ``pytest`` or ``nosetests`` on a Python file, (<i>or on folders containing Python files</i>).
SeleniumBase methods automatically wait for page elements to finish loading before interacting with them (*up to a timeout limit*). This means you no longer need random ``time.sleep()`` statements in your scripts.
SeleniumBase includes a solution called **[MasterQA](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/masterqa/ReadMe.md)**, which speeds up manual testing by having automation perform all the browser actions while the manual tester handles validatation.
If the example test is moving too fast for your eyes, you can run it in **Demo Mode** by adding ``--demo_mode`` on the command line, which pauses the browser briefly between actions, highlights page elements being acted on, and lets you know what test assertions are happening in real time:
During test failures, logs and screenshots from the most recent test run will get saved to the ``latest_logs/`` folder. Those logs will get moved to ``archived_logs/`` if you have ARCHIVE_EXISTING_LOGS set to True in [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py), otherwise log files with be cleaned up at the start of the next test run. The ``test_suite.py`` collection contains tests that fail on purpose so that you can see how logging works.
If you want to run tests headlessly, use ``--headless``, which you'll need to do if your system lacks a GUI interface. Even if your system does have a GUI interface, it may still support headless browser automation.
To run Pytest multithreaded on multiple CPUs at the same time, add ``-n=NUM`` or ``-n NUM`` on the command line, where NUM is the number of CPUs you want to use.
If you want to pass additional data from the command line to your tests, you can use ``--data=STRING``. Now inside your tests, you can use ``self.data`` to access that.
For running tests outside of the SeleniumBase repo with **Pytest**, you'll want a copy of **[pytest.ini](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/pytest.ini)** on the root folder. For running tests outside of the SeleniumBase repo with **Nosetests**, you'll want a copy of **[setup.cfg](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/setup.cfg)** on the root folder. (Subfolders should include a blank ``__init__.py`` file.)
As a shortcut, you'll be able to run ``seleniumbase mkdir [DIRECTORY_NAME]`` to create a new folder that already contains necessary files and some example tests that you can run. Example:
### <img src="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/100006/images/super_square_logo_3a.png" title="SeleniumBase" height="32"> **Creating Visual Test Suite Reports:**
(NOTE: You can add ``--show_report`` to immediately display Nosetest reports after the test suite completes. Only use ``--show_report`` when running tests locally because it pauses the test run.)
If you wish to use a proxy server for your browser tests (Chrome and Firefox only), you can add ``--proxy=IP_ADDRESS:PORT`` as an argument on the command line.
To make things easier, you can add your frequently-used proxies to PROXY_LIST in [proxy_list.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/proxy_list.py), and then use ``--proxy=KEY_FROM_PROXY_LIST`` to use the IP_ADDRESS:PORT of that key.
### <img src="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/100006/images/super_square_logo_3a.png" title="SeleniumBase" height="32"> **Changing the User-Agent:**
If you wish to change the User-Agent for your browser tests (Chrome and Firefox only), you can add ``--agent="USER AGENT STRING"`` as an argument on the command line.
* You can setup a [Jenkins](https://jenkins.io/) build server for running tests at regular intervals. Jenkins has many plugins available, such as [the Xvfb headless browser plugin](https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Xvfb+Plugin) for running tests on a machine with no GUI. If you have Xvfb running in the background, you can add ``--headless`` to your run command in order to utilize it. For more info about the Xvfb plugin, [read this](https://qxf2.com/blog/xvfb-plugin-for-jenkins-selenium/). For a real-world Jenkins example of headless browser automation in action, check out [the SeleniumBase Google Cloud ReadMe](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/integrations/google_cloud/ReadMe.md).
* You can use [the Selenium Grid](https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/Grid2) to scale your testing by distributing tests on several machines with parallel execution. To do this, check out the SeleniumBase [selenium_grid folder](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/seleniumbase/utilities/selenium_grid), which should have everything you need. The [Selenium Grid ReadMe](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/utilities/selenium_grid/ReadMe.md) will help you get started.
* If you're using the [SeleniumBase MySQL feature](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/mysql_installation.md) to save results from tests running on a server machine, you can install [MySQL Workbench](https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/tools/workbench/) to help you read & write from your DB more easily. You'll also need to install the MySQL Python client. Depending on your system, you may need to install additional requirements for this (such as on Windows). See [Stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43102442/whats-the-difference-between-mysqldb-mysqlclient-and-mysql-connector-python) for more info.
* If you use [Slack](https://slack.com), you can easily have your Jenkins jobs display results there by using the [Jenkins Slack Plugin](https://github.com/jenkinsci/slack-plugin). Another way to send messages from your tests to Slack is by using [Slack's Incoming Webhooks API](https://api.slack.com/incoming-webhooks).
* If you're using AWS, you can setup an [Amazon S3](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/) account for saving your log files and screenshots for future viewing. SeleniumBase already has [all the code you need to connect to S3](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/plugins/s3_logging_plugin.py). You'll need to modify [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py) with connection details to your instance and the location in S3 where you want log files to be saved. You'll also need to add "``--with-s3_logging``" on the command line when you run your tests.
(NOTE: If you haven't configured your MySQL or S3 connections in [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py), don't use ``--with-db_reporting`` or ``--with-s3_logging``.)
When the testing_base plugin is used, if there's a test failure, the basic_test_info plugin records test logs, the page_source plugin records the page source of the last web page seen by the test, and the screen_shots plugin records the image of the last page seen by the test where the failure occurred. Make sure you always include testing_base whenever you include a plugin that logs test data. The db_reporting plugin records the status of all tests run into your MySQL DB. The s3_logging plugin uploads basic test info, screenshots, and page source into your S3 storage folder.
To simplify that long run command, you can create a ``*.cfg`` file, such as the one provided in the example, and enter your plugins there so that you can run everything by typing:
You can simplify that even more by using a setup.cfg file, such as the one provided for you in the examples folder. If you kick off a test run from within the folder that setup.cfg is location in, that file will automatically be used as your configuration, meaning that you wouldn't have to type out all the plugins that you want to use (or include a config file) everytime you run tests.
If you tell pytest/nosetests to run an entire file, it will run every method in that python file that starts with "test". You can be more specific on what to run by doing something like the following: (<i>Note that the syntax is different for pytest vs nosetests.</i>)
You'll notice that a logs folder, "latest_logs", was created to hold information about the failing test, and screenshots. Take a look at what you get. Remember, this data can be saved in your MySQL DB and in S3 if you include the necessary plugins in your run command (and if you set up the neccessary connections properly). For future test runs, past test results will get stored in the archived_logs folder if you have ARCHIVE_EXISTING_LOGS set to True in [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py).
**ProTip™:** You may need to use the get_page_source() method along with Python's find() command to parse through the source to find something that Selenium wouldn't be able to. (You may want to brush up on your Python programming skills for that.)
**ProTip™:** In most web browsers, you can right-click on a page and select ``Inspect Element`` to see the CSS selector details that you'll need to create your own scripts.
self.update_text(selector, text) # updates the text from the specified element with the specified value. An exception is raised if the element is missing or if the text field is not editable. Example:
```python
self.update_text("input#id_value", "2012")
```
You can also use self.add_text() or the WebDriver .send_keys() command, but those won't clear the text box first if there's already text inside.
If you want to type in special keys, that's easy too. Here's an example:
```python
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
self.find_element("textarea").send_keys(Keys.SPACE + Keys.BACK_SPACE + '\n') # the backspace should cancel out the space, leaving you with the newline
(NOTE: The short versions of this are ``self.find_element(ELEMENT)`` and ``self.assert_element(ELEMENT)``. The find_element() version returns the element)
**ProTip™:** You can use dots to signify class names (Ex: ``div.class_name``) as a simplified version of ``div[class="class_name"]`` within a CSS selector.
You can also use ``*=`` to search for any partial value in a CSS selector as shown below:
(NOTE: ``self.find_text(TEXT, ELEMENT)`` and ``self.wait_for_text(TEXT, ELEMENT)`` also do this. For backwords compatibility, older method names were kept, but the default timeout may be different.)
elif self.is_text_visible("Bing it on Screen!", selector):
return "Picard Microsoft Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("OK Glass, Make it So!", selector):
return "Picard Google Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("Number One, I've Never Seen Anything Like It.", selector):
return "Picard Tesla Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("""With the first link, the chain is forged.
The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden,
the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.""", selector):
return "Picard Wikimedia Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("Let us make sure history never forgets the name ... Facebook", selector):
return "Picard Facebook Superbowl Ad 2015"
else:
raise Exception("Reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated.")
```
#### Switching Tabs
What if your test opens up a new tab/window and now you have more than one page? No problem. You need to specify which one you currently want Selenium to use. Switching between tabs/windows is easy:
If you're not sure whether there's an alert before trying to accept or dismiss it, one way to handle that is to wrap your alert-handling code in a try/except block. Other methods such as .text and .send_keys() will also work with alerts.
#### Executing Custom jQuery Scripts:
jQuery is a powerful JavaScript library that allows you to perform advanced actions in a web browser.
If the web page you're on already has jQuery loaded, you can start executing jQuery scripts immediately.
You'd know this because the web page would contain something like the following in the HTML:
Some websites have a restrictive [Content Security Policy](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CSP) to prevent users from loading jQuery and other external libraries onto their websites. If you need to use jQuery or another JS library on such a website, use Firefox with SeleniumBase, which overrides the CSP to allow loading of any JS library.
(Due to popular demand, this traffic generation example has been baked into SeleniumBase with the ``self.generate_referral(start_page, end_page)`` and the ``self.generate_traffic(start_page, end_page, loops)`` methods.)
Let's say you want to verify multiple different elements on a web page in a single test, but you don't want the test to fail until you verified several elements at once so that you don't have to rerun the test to find more missing elements on the same page. That's where delayed asserts come in. Here's the example:
``delayed_assert_element()`` and ``delayed_assert_text()`` will save any exceptions that would be raised.
To flush out all the failed delayed asserts into a single exception, make sure to call ``self.process_delayed_asserts()`` at the end of your test method. If your test hits multiple pages, you can call ``self.process_delayed_asserts()`` at the end of all your delayed asserts for a single page. This way, the screenshot from your log file will have the location where the delayed asserts were made.
You can use ``--reruns NUM`` to retry failing tests that many times. Use ``--reruns-delay SECONDS`` to wait that many seconds between retries. Example:
Additionally, you can use the ``@retry_on_exception()`` decorator to specifically retry failing methods. (First import: ``from seleniumbase import decorators``) To learn more about SeleniumBase decorators, [click here](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/seleniumbase/common).
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