Selenium

What is Python Selenium Framework:

It is a combination of tools + structure + best practices to write automation tests using selenium in python.

Selenium:

Selenium is an automation testing tool that is used to automate web browsers. It helps tester to verify functionalities like clicking buttons, filling forms, navigating to pages etc.

It is a tool that:

1. Open browsers.

2. Perform actions, like click, type, scroll etc.

3. Validate results.

Why use Python with Selenium:

1. Easy syntax.

2. Fast to write

3. Huge library support.

What makes it a framework:

1. Without framework: Write random scripts, that will be hard to maintain.

2. With Framework: Organized code, reusable components, easy scaling.

Why Selenium?

If we do manual testing, it will be slow and repetitive tasks will be there. Selenium handles the repetitive tasks. Instead of manually logging in 50 times, we will write a Selenium script that will perform this. Selenium is an open-source framework for automation testing of web browsers. It supports chrome, edge, firefox, safari. And we can use it with programming languages like Python, java, C# and Javascript.

Components of Selenium:

1. Selenium webdriver: Main tool to control browsers via code, perform clicks, type text, navigate pages, and simulate other user actions.

2. Selenium IDE: Browser plugin for recording actions and generate test scripts.

3. Selenium Grid: Run test on multiple browsers and system simultaneously, for cross-browser testing. Selenium WebDriver: It is a core component of selenium that is widely used for browser automation tesing. Is allows direct communication with browsers by using their native APIs.

Features:

1. Direct browser control: Webdriver interact directly with the browsers via broswer specific drivers, like for chrome we will use chrome driver, for Firefox we will gecko driver. It elminates the need of intermediate server.

2. Cross broswer compatibility: We can use it with chrome, firefox, edge, and safari.

3. Dynamic Web Element handling: Dynamic components are there on the web applications like AJAX, iframes and responsive UI elements. We use strategies like Implicit wait, explicit wait, fluent wait.

What are its versions:

1. Selenium IDE: It is a browser extension that is installed in a browser. It is used for Record and playback. It was beginner friendly.

2. Selenium RC(Remote Control) (old deprecated): It is not in use for now. It allows to wrtie script. cross-browser testing, different actions we can perform. Now webdriver was not there, we were interacting with the browsers using a server, Limitations: Slow, dependency on server, limited browser support, no pop-up handling, cross-domain security restrictions. limited language support, concurrency issues.

3. Selenium Webdriver: Direct browser control, used in real projects and widely used in industry.

*4. Selenium Grid: Run tests on multiple browsers and machines. used for parallel execution.

• Advantages of Selenium:

1. Open Source

2. It supports multiple programming languages like Python, Java, JS 3. Cross-browser testing. 4. Large community support. 5. Easy Integration with tools, like pytest and testng, jenkins 6. Run tests concurrently.

Dis-advantages: 1. It supports only web applications. 2. Not having image comparison. 3. Selenium cannot create reports.

Why Companies use selenium:

1. Free of cost
2. Fast regression testing
3. Reduce manual efforts
4. CI/CD Integration

Difference Between Selenium and other Automation tools:

Selenium: Web apps only, mobile applications via integration of Appium. WebDriver protocol via browser drivers. Broadest support for programming languages. Requires third-party integration for reports.

Cypress: Web apps only, no other integeration tool for mobile testing. Runs in-browser, because it is javascript based. Only Javascript. Built-in automation screenshots, dashboard, report.

Playwright: web apps, mobile emulation, not native apps. Direct communication via websocket with browser engines. Broadest support, like JS, TS, Python, Java.. Built-in auto wait, network interception, tracing, screenshots, report.

Automation framework:

Selenium and pythone alone are not equal to automation framework. We can say automation framework when we have a full stack of: Selenium + Test Framework Pytest + Reporting + CI/CD