Automated browser testing with Selenium and C#

Darren Bruning@dbruning

Going to cover:• Why browser automation?• Why selenium?• “Naked” selenium• Selenium in a test framework: Kumara• Kumara internals• More Selenium goodness

Why browser automation?

• Primarily for testing• Maybe also to script boring repetitive tasks

What is selenium?• There are lots of browsers• They all do similar things (go to websites, let you click on things)• There was no consistent API to automate them• Selenium 1: was javascripty, problematic• WebDriver project started at Google• Selenium 2 adopted WebDriver as preferred method to “drive”

browsers.

WebDriver protocol• Uses HTTP as a transport• “Bindings” for different languages, emit HTTP calls• WebDriver “drivers” (servers) accept HTTP calls & actually drive the

browser

What does Selenium API look like?

Why not write tests directly against Selenium API?• Tests end up with lots of code• “business logic” gets obscured• Tests only readable by devs• Would be more value in the tests if they also served as

documentation• => BDD (Behaviour Driven Design)

SpecFlow – feature files

SpecFlow – behind the curtain

SpecFlow is great and all but…• Yaaaay • test readability! • Feature documentation!

• Boo• Need plugin for Visual Studio• Can’t use refactoring tools• Becomes a pain to keep the feature file text in sync with the regex

Enter the Kumara!• Nee Calcot• Given – when –then syntax• Given(List<ICondition>)• When(List<Action>)• Then(List<ICondition>)• It’s still just code, but it’s

very readable (maybe even by a BA? Or tester?)

ICondition

Wait, how can a condition satisfy itself???

ActionBasedCondition implements ICondition

Example of an ActionBasedCondition

… and another one with preconditions

So basically, with Kumara:• You define some “Root Nouns”

(the things you interact with in a test)

• You create some IConditions on those root nouns

• You write tests using those conditions

How does Kumara use WebDriver?

Commonly, by CSS:

Then your tests can be all like…

The awesomest thing about Selenium is…

Review past tests, watch videos:• https://saucelabs.com/tests/69f48decbb234e3b8adadf2a3205eebe

Run in any combination of OS and browser

Also awesome: PhantomJS

• Very fast!• Runs locally, so less network latency for WebDriver calls,

bloating out the test runtime

Build it into your CI flow, for early feedback

Questions?