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Getting started with Selenium WebDriver

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Harmeet
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AHMEDABAD, INDIA: Web testing is an important requirement considering internet acceptance worldwide for both web and mobile. Considering the wide use of Agile methodology; there is a need for frequent release and hence regression testing.

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Manual testing is not only slow and exhaustive but there are high chances of human errors. Testing the same test cases with different sets of data is time consuming. There are so many browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera etc.) on which the end user may access the application and hence the test matrix can become very complex and it multiplies the testing effort. This can be overcome by automation.

While there are many tools/API available for web based test automation; Selenium an open source is very widely used to perform automation.

Selenium WebDriver

Selenium 2.0 or Selenium WebDriver is the merging of two projects Selenium 1.0 and WebDriver API. It supports dynamic web pages where elements of a page may change without the page itself being reloaded.

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It calls the browser directly using the native support of browser. It works with all browsers and is compatible with major operating systems like Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. Automation Script can be written in any of the Programming Languages like Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Perl and PHP.

Why Selenium WebDriver?

Working with frames is a painful process in Web automation. But with Selenium WebDriver, switching between frames is much easier

* By using WebDriver you will have more control over the code and you can have the ability to reuse the code which saves vast amount of time and also removes complexity.

* By using click handler you can perform click on any element like button, link, radio button, etc.

* Consistency over the browsers is improved.

* Multiple windows, pop-ups and Alerts can be handled.

* Support for iPhone and Android testing.

* You can easily simulate browsing history by clicking back and front buttons.

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