andthennothing.net: Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jonas

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:20:15 +0000

Jitu: I'm not sure I understand what you want. How and where do you want to use CSV and "normal" files in selenium script? Also it's probably better if you use the user forum.

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jitu

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 12:02:27 +0000

Hi, Can you please guide me how to call a CSV file and a normal file to a Selenium script ? Please help me. Thanks, Jitu

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Erkki

Sun, 21 May 2006 13:13:49 +0000

Jonas: I have a setup where I need to set user/login info through session variables. I cannot login through selenium because the login is not handled by the rails app I'm trying to test. I figure it should be possible to specify the parameters in the setup url. Perhaps a better solution would be another setup-session url where information could be posted?

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jonas

Wed, 17 May 2006 18:03:41 +0000

Erkki: No, not currently. What kind of data would you like to set in the session? Do you think it would possible to specify the data in the query part of the "setup" URL?

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jonas

Wed, 17 May 2006 17:58:08 +0000

Shinya: Okey. I'll look at Selenium RC later on to see if it fits. But it will take some time since I'm quite busy. Let me know if you come up with an idea of how to incorporate it!

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Erkki

Wed, 17 May 2006 13:40:32 +0000

Is it possible to pre-setup session data when running selenium tests?

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Shinya

Fri, 12 May 2006 06:32:59 +0000

Thanks for incorporating the patch, Jonas.
Selenium RC has significantly changed since the driven mode in Selenium. Personally I think the TestRunner in Selenium, as used in Selenium on Rails, has the advantage in its simplicity (you don't need to run Selenium Server, and you can easily run tests using the web UI), but when you want to start using variables and conditions in your test, Selenium RC can handle it very well.

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jonas

Thu, 11 May 2006 23:04:05 +0000

Hi Shinya,

The patch is included in the svn repository, thank you!

I've heard about the Selenium RC but not looked into it. Has RC been developed much lately or is it the same as what was included in the old Selenium project?

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Shinya

Thu, 11 May 2006 10:42:56 +0000

Hi,

I've started putting Selenium on Rails into our continuous integration cycle, but even if test_acceptance fails with some errors, rake doesn't return an error. So I've created a patch that fixes this: http://www.kbmj.com/~shinya/selenium_on_rails/raise_test_failure.patch

BTW, have you checked out Selenium Remote Control? This allows you to control Selenium remotely using Ruby code, and it would be great if it gets integrated into Rails.

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jonas

Thu, 04 May 2006 00:06:19 +0000

I just made that change to the svn repository. Hope it helps!

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Jonas

Wed, 03 May 2006 17:12:50 +0000

It works on my computer :-)

Could you check if you have the file lib/selenium_on_rails/partials_support.rb? If so does it work if you add the following line to /lib/selenium_on_rails.rb:

require 'selenium_on_rails/partials_support'

"Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer" by Matt

Wed, 03 May 2006 16:20:07 +0000

There seems to be a problem with the PartialsSupport class.
TestRunner fails with: uninitialized constant PartialsSupport
on renderer.rb:6:in `render_test_case'

Selenium on Rails is getting DRYer

jonas.b@home.se (Jonas Bengtsson) — Tue, 02 May 2006 21:54:00 +0000

Selenium on Rails has moved.

Selenium on Rails has gotten way too little love lately, but now I just released an update.

First off, a new feature. It is now possible to create partial test cases and include them in other test cases. That way you can keep common actions in one place and use them in many.

#_login.rsel
open '/login'
type 'name', name
type 'password', password
click 'submit', :wait=>true

To include a partial test case you write like this in a Selenese test case:

|includePartial|login|name=John Doe|password=eoD nhoJ|

and in a RSelenese test case:

include_partial 'login', :name => 'Jane Doe', :password => 'Jane Doe'.reverse

Also included in this release is two defect fixes to rake test:acceptance.

The first fix is from David Vollbracht which makes it possible to start the server automatically on *nix. You still have to start_server: true in config.yml since I can’t get it to work reliably on Windows (if anyone knows why, give me a ping).

The second fix is from Dave Hoover which adds support for Safari.

script/plugin update (or reinstall the plugin if that doesn’t work)

Let me know if it doesn’t work or if you want it to work differently!

Overview

Selenium on Rails provides an easy way to test Rails application with Selenium.

This plugin does four things:

The Selenium files don’t have to pollute /public, they can stay in the Selenium gem or in /vendor/selenium.
No need to create suite files, they are generated on the fly—one suite per directory in /test/selenium (suites can be nested).
Instead of writing the test cases in HTML you can use a number of better formats (see Formats).
Loading of fixtures and wiping of session (/selenium/setup).

Installation

Selenium needs to be available. It could either be installed as a gem (gem install selenium) or in /vendor/selenium/.
Install Selenium on Rails: script/plugin install http://andthennothing.net/svn/public/selenium_on_rails/
If RedCloth is available the Selenese test cases can use it for better markup.
Run the Rakefile in the plugin’s directory to run the tests in order to see that everything works. (If RedCloth isn’t installed a few tests will fail since they assume RedCloth is installed.)
Create a test case: script/generate selenium login
Start the server: script/server -e test
Point your browser to http://localhost:3000/selenium
If everything works as expected you should see the Selenium test runner. The north east frame contains all your test cases (just one for now), and the north frame contains your test case.

win32-open3

win32-open3 is needed if you’re on Windows and want to run your tests as a Rake task (see test:acceptance), i.e. you don’t have to install it but it’s recommended.

You can build it from source or install the binary:

Download the latest version of win32-open3, open3-0.2.2.so at the time of this writing.
Open up irb and run this snippet: require ‘rbconfig’; include Config; puts CONFIG[‘sitearchdir’]
Create a win32 directory under the directory you got, e.g. c:\ruby\lib\ruby\site_ruby\1.8\i386-msvcrt
Rename the .so file to open3.so and put it in the win32 directory.
Profit! (unless you get an error when doing require ‘win32/open3’)

Formats

The test cases can be written in a number of formats. Which one you choose is a matter of taste. You can generate your test files by running script/generate selenium or by creating them manually in your /test/selenium directory.

Selenese, .sel

Selenese is the dumbest format (in a good way). You just write your commands delimited by | characters.

|open|/selenium/setup|
|open|/|
|goBack|

If you don’t want to write Selenese tests by hand you can use SeleniumIDE which has support for Selenese.

SeleniumIDE makes it super easy to record test and edit them.

RSelenese, .rsel

RSelenese enable you to write your tests in Ruby.

setup :fixtures => :all
open '/'
assert_title 'Home'
('a'..'z').each {|c| open :controller => 'user', :action => 'create', :name => c }

See SeleniumOnRails::TestBuilder for available commands.

HTML/RHTML

You can write your tests in HTML/RHTML but that’s mostly useful if you have existing tests you want to reuse.

Partial test cases

If you have some common actions you want to do in several test cases you can put them in a separate partial test case and include them in your other test cases.

A partial test case is just like a normal test case besides that its filename has to start with _:

#_login.rsel
open '/login'
type 'name', name
type 'password', password
click 'submit', :wait=>true

To include a partial test case you write like this in a Selenese test case:

|includePartial|login|name=John Doe|password=eoD nhoJ|

in a RSelenese test case:

include_partial 'login', :name => 'Jane Doe', :password => 'Jane Doe'.reverse

and in a RHTML test case:

<%= render :partial => 'login', :locals => {:name = 'Joe Schmo', :password => 'Joe Schmo'.reverse} %>

Configuration

There are a number of settings available. You make them by renaming config.yml.example to config.yml and make your changes in that file.

Environments

Per default this plugin is only available in test environment. You can change this by setting environments, such as:

#config.yml
environments:
  - test
  - development

`test:acceptance`

You can run all your Selenium tests as a Rake task.

First, if you’re on Windows, you have to make sure win32-open3 is installed. Then you have to configure which browsers you want to run, like this:

#config.yml
browsers:
  firefox: 'c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe'
  ie: 'c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe'

Now you’re all set. First start a server:

script/server -e test

Then run the tests:

rake test:acceptance

Now it should work, otherwise let me know!

Todo

Standalone mode

More work is needed on test:acceptance on Windows to be able to start the server when needed.

user_extension.js

Selenium has support for user_extension.js which is a way to extend the functionality of Selenium. However there is currently no easy way to add such a file in Selenium on Rails.

More setup/teardown support?

Currently there is only support to load fixtures and to wipe the session in /selenium/setup. Is there a need for more kinds of setups or teardowns?

Not todo

Editor

Creating an editor for the test cases is currently considered out of scope for this plugin. SeleniumIDE does such a good job and has support for the Selenese format.

Credits

Jon Tirsen—initial inspiration
Eric Kidd—contribution of RSelenese

Contact

Jonas Bengtsson, jonas.b@home.se