Comparison Between Selenium and QTP

Platform Support
-Language Support
Selenium uses Selenese, a high-level, cross platform language to write Selenium commands which is a domain specific language. There are 3 basic categories for the commands – named actions, accessors and assertions. To write tests there are a lot of programming languages like C#, Java, Perl, PHP, Python or Ruby.
QTP scripts can be written with VBScript which is a high-level language with support to everything except polymorphism and inheritance.
- Support for various application types
Selenium supports only Web applications.
QTP supports almost any kind of applications.
Selenium scores fewer points in this regard as it supports only web application. QTP supports almost all kinds of applications

- Support for various browsers
Selenium supports all versions of IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera and a few more browsers.
QTP supports IE & Firefox. But both do not provide full cross browser support.
Selenium is the clear winner in this respect
- Support for Data Driven Testing
Selenium IDE supports xml data source using user extensions.
Data Driven testing is implemented as Excel workbook that can be accessed by QTP. There are 2 types of data sheet global and local. Global sheet is a single one which can be accessed from every action in a test. There can even be a local data sheet associated with every action.
- Exception Handling
Selenium IDE does not support error handling particularly unexpected errors (as it supports only HTML language). Selenium RC will provide support for it (it supports languages with .NET, Java, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby).
QTP provides VBScript with the help of which we can use On Error statements.
- Validations or Assertions
Selenium assertions can be used in 3 modes assert, verify and waitFor. When an “assert” fails, the test is aborted. When a “verify” (Soft Assertions) fails, the test will continue execution, logging the failure. This facility can be used with TestNg framework. The “waitFor” commands wait for some condition to become true. They will succeed immediately if the condition is already true. However, they will fail and halt the test if the condition does not become true within the current timeout period.
For QTP there are checkpoints: to verify application under test. These are of 10 types – Standard, Table, Image, Bitmap, Database, Text, Text Area, Page, Accessibility, and XML. A checkpoint is a verification point that compares the current value with the expected value. If the current and expected value match it generates a PASS status otherwise FAIL status.
- Support for Objects
Object properties are not supported by Selenium. Selenium objects can be managed by using UI element user extensions. QTP comes with in-built object repository.
QTP objects have user friendly names.
Integration with Application Lifecycle Management and going beyond
- ALM Integration
Selenium being an Open Source software can be integrated with other Open Source products for Application Lifecycle Management like QMetry. This in turn can provide platform for software development lifecycle platform in the form of Atlassian Jira (project tracking tool), FogBugz or Bugzilla (bug tracking tool).
QTP being a part of Quality Centre it supports requirement traceability matrix. QTP integrates seamlessly with QC. Test management and mapping the manual testing process with automation becomes a lot easier with this integration
QC is still not complete life cycle management tool. It does not provide support for efforts management, build management or support to different process templates. It supports only test management, bug management and requirement management.
- Going beyond
Selenium being Open Source a lot of plugins available. Selenium IDE has plug-ins for customization, for adding new functionality to API, changing existing functionality.
QTP provided plug-ins for ActiveX controls, web application and VB objects. Other than these plug-ins for other objects like Microsoft .NET, multimedia plug-ins and Windows Mobile are also available. These QTP plugins available at an additional cost.
Each of the tools keeps on adding features as per need. Selenium being open source there are a lot of plug-ins.

Selenium WebDriver Training

What is Selenium Webdriver?

Webdriver is known to be the latest version of Selenium i.e. Selenium 2.x. More powerful than the primitive Selenium rc 1.x and comes with lots and lots of libraries and new features to work with. It’s not mandatory to know Selenium RC to work with Webdriver. You can directly learn webdriver and start working on it. There is no need of selenium server if you are working with Webdriver API

What makes it different from Selenium RC?

• More object oriented as compare to Selenium RC.
• Has wider range of APIs
• Interacts natively with browser where as Selenium RC is Javascript based.
• Can test Iphone and Andriod based application which is not supported by Selenium RC.
• Implements HTMLUnit driver which makes test execution really fast.
• Unlike Selenium RC there is no server in Webdriver.
• Supports almost all lastest web browsers where as Selenium RC does not works on latest versions on Firefox and IE.

WebDriver Architecture

Element Identification using Selenium WebDriver: Questions and Answers

1: What is the method used to launch URL using Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: In Firefox, we can set the homepage as the required URL as shown in the code below. This will launch the URL set in homepage on launching the driver.
FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
profile.setPreference(“browser.startup.homepage”,“http://www.google.com”);
//We will provide the profile used as argument for Firefox Driver.
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile);
In case, we do not want to use profile, we can use the get method to launch the URL.
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.get(“https://www.google.com”);
2: What is the difference between findElement and findelements method in Selenium?
Answer: To locate an element in the page, we use findElement method whereas findElements gives the collection of web elements in the Page.
Syntax for findElement is:
WebElement tableinfo = driver.findElement(By.className(“tableClsName”));
This will give the first element in the page with className as “tableClsName”. Now once the element is recognized, we can perform action on the WebElement. Suppose the element is a button, we can click on the button as shown below:
Tableinfo.click();
Suppose the WebElement is an input box, we can insert data in the input box as shown below:
Tableinfo.SendKeys(“This is a test”);
Syntax for findElements is:
List<WebElement> tabledata = tableinfo.findElements(By.tagName(“td”));
This will give collection of all elements in the page with className as “td”.
We can further work on the collection of the object and extract the required information or perform actions on the required webElement as shown below:
List<WebElement> tabledata = tableinfo.findElements(By.tagName(“td”));
for (int iCnt = 0;i<tabledata.size();iCnt++)
 {
String strData = tabledata.get(iCnt).getText() ;
If(strData.contentEquals(“this is the row”))
{
System.out.println(“Web Element Found”)
iCnt = tabledata.size()-1;
}
}
3: What are the value ways to identify an object in Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: Below are the various locators by which elements can be identified in Selenium WebDriver:
1. Id:  Identifies WebElement by the ‘Id’ attribute.
2. ClassName: Identifies webelement by the ‘class’ attribute.
3. cssSelector: identifies element based on the css of the webElement.
4. linkText: Identifies element by the actual text of the link. Text should match exactly with the link text.
5. Name: Identifies webelement by the ‘name’ attribute.
6. partiallinkText: Identifies element by the actual text of the link. The link is identified on partial match of text.
7. tagName: Identifies an object by the tagName of the webElement.
8. xpath: Identifies an object by the xpath of the object.

Selenium WebDriver – Interview Questions

1: What is Selenium Web Driver?
Answer:  Selenium Web driver uses accessibility API to drive the browser and recognizes the object in web-based application. It allows writing automated tests replicating the behavior of real user, e.g. Clicking on a link or feeding data in an edit box. Using Selenium Web Driver together with any programming language and other testing framework like TestNG and JUnit, automation test framework to execute tests on different browsers can be created. We can use the robust features of the programming language to interact with other components of application like database interaction, files interaction to create a robust and reliable framework.
 2: What are the various browsers supported by Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: WebDriver available for automation in different browsers are ChromeDriver, InternetExplorerDriver, FirefoxDriver, OperaDriver and HtmlUnitDriver.
 3: What are the programming languages supported by WebDriver?
Answer: Python, Ruby, C#, Java, Perl, php and javascript are supported.
 4: What are the necessary steps required, before I start creating selenium tests on java using eclipse?
Answer: We require following configuration to be set up before creating test in eclipse:

1.  Java needs to be installed in the machine.
2.  Eclipse IDE needs to be installed.
3.  Selenium Libraries for WebDriver should be available.

 5: Do we need to install some additional executable files working with Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: For Firefox driver, we do not require any additional executable as it is bundled with Java client bindings, For IE driver, Chrome driver, and Opera driver, we require additional executable that can be downloadable from Selenium Official website.
An example of how to create an instance of Internet Explorer Web Driver is shown in below example.
6: Is there any specific pre-condition before executing a selenium script on Internet Explorer?
Answer: Yes, Protected Mode settings should be same for all zones. Enable Protected Mode must be set to the same value (enabled or disabled) for all zones.
 7: What are Firefox profile preferences?
Answer: Using Firefox Profile, we can set the preferences for the Firefox in the profile.
The steps to define profile in Selenium are:
1.  Create an object of firefox profile
FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
2.   Set the required preference of the firefox :
profile.setPreference(“browser.startup.homepage”,”http://www.google.com”)
3.  Create the driver object with profile as defined above.
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile);
8: What is the use of using TestNG with selenium in Java?
Answer: TestNG is a unit testing framework used for java programming language. Test Cases using Selenium Webdriver to identify webelement in the web application can be integrated/created on TestNG framework. Some of the useful features TestNG provides are as follows:
1.  Using Annotation to describe order of test cases, defining start conditions and end condition using  @after and @before annotations.

Selenium IDE: Interview Questions with Answers

1:  Explain the various features provided by Selenium IDE?
Answer: The layout of Selenium IDE is divided into following four areas:
1. MenuBar – Following are the menu options available in Selenium IDE:
 a.   File – Allows creating new test case, test suite, open existing test case, test suite, exporting tests to other formats.
 b.   Edit – Allows editing existing test steps, and adding new commands and comments.
 c.   Actions – Allows to record, play a test, execute command, toggle breakpoint and set entry point.
 d.  Options – Allows the changing of settings including set the timeout value for commands and specifying the format used for saving test cases.
 e.  Help – provides documentation for selenium IDE.
   2.  Toolbar – Provides buttons to manage test execution including test execution and test execution.
   3.  Test Case Pane – Test Case Pane shows the list of test case on the left and test steps in table or
source pane on the right. We can add/modify commands, target and value in the table for the test.
    4.  Log/Reference/UI-Element/Rollup Pane – This pane helps us to view logs of execution, reference explaining the selected command. We can also set to filter logs for info, warning, error and debug in this window.
 2: Explain what are the various items available from file menu
Answer: From the File Menu, We can perform various tasks
a.  Create New Test Case.
b.   Create new Test Suite.
c.   Save test cases and test suites.

1.    Export Test cases/test suites to various formats. E.g : Ruby/Python/java/c# with WebDriver or RC.
2.   Open existing test cases and test suites.

d.   Rename a test case.
3: Can the script prepared in Selenium IDE be used with webdriver/Remote control?
Answer: Yes, the script created in Selenium IDE can be exported to WebDriver/Remote Control in the languages java/c#/python/ruby that can be run using junit(java), RSpec(ruby), nUnit.
4: My Application is running slowly, can I change the default timeout value of recorder command?
Answer: We can reset the default timeout value for recorded command from Options Menu. By default the timeout is set as 30000 ms. In options, we can also define the recording settings and order of locator preference for object identification.
 5: What is the short cut key to create a new test in Selenium IDE?
Answer: The shortcut key to create a new test in Selenium IDE is Ctrl + N.
Some other useful shortcut keys in Selenium are:
Open a test – Ctrl + O :  Save a test – Ctrl + S  : Add test to test suite : Ctrl + D.
 6: What is the use of Select and find button in target in Selenium IDE?
Answer: On clicking on select, we can add the locator of an element in the page. Click on Select and click on an element in the page, the locator for the element will be added in the target. Find helps us to verify object exists in the page and highlights the object in the page if exists, else error is displayed in the log.

How to Configure Eclipse to work with Selenium

Before starting working with Selenium using Eclipse IDE, we did some configuration that needs to be done for starting and understanding Selenium. This post will explain step wise, how to start working with selenium using Eclipse:

Pre- Conditions: We will require following before beginning the configuration:
1. Java needs to be installed in the machine.
2. Eclipse IDE needs to be installed .
3. Standalone libraries of selenium, at the time of writing this post, I am using selenium-server-standalone-2.33.0.jar
4. Verify in Path variable in User defined variable for machine, is set to the path where standalone libraries is placed as shown below

Configuration Steps: 

Step 1: In eclipse, create a new java project as shown below from File>New Java Project

Create a new Java Project

Step 2: Once a java project is created, right click on project and select option “Build Path>Configure build path

Configure build path of project

Step 3: Click on Add External JAR’s and add the selenium standalone jar as shown below.

 Step 4: Now in src for the project, Add a new package, and add a new class as shown below.

Select methods stubs to create as public static void main(String[] args)

                                         

Step 5: Write the code in the class created above and execute. This will open Google in internet explorer . Write selenium in search and click on search.

Code to be placed in void main:

WebDriver ieDriver = new InternetExplorerDriver();

ieDriver.get(“http://www.google.com”);

WebElement element = ieDriver.findElement(By.name(“q”));

element.sendKeys(“selenium”);

element.submit();

Design Patterns in Selenium

Before creating tests in Selenium, we should look for design patterns to be followed in the test. Defining Design pattern to be used in automation helps in easier maintenance of the project once the number of tests increases. Design Pattern should be used in such a manner that rework due to of any code changes are minimum, creating new test uses the existing code.
Following are a few strategies or design patterns used in Selenium for making tests easier to create and maintain:
1.       Page Object Model
2.       Using Page Factory in Page object
3.       Loadable components
When we write code for tests in Selenium, we can break down the code in such a manner that code maintenance is better. Suppose we have two tests. One tests for an image visible on home Page post login and another verifies welcome text post logging in the application. Writing the same code in two different tests will require code to be changed in two different places in case object property changes in login Page and at times in case we have large number of tests in the test suite, it will take considerable time to fix the automation code. We should refactor the code and create smaller private methods that are used in different tests.
So now, we can make change at one place and it will be reflected in many tests by refactoring the tests.
In Page Object Model, we create individual classes for each of the pages with all the methods pertaining to the Page. These methods specific to a page covers both positive and negative scenarios specific to page.
Page Object Model reduces the duplication of code, improves readability and increases robustness of the test. Also the code is lot more maintainable, which is specifically useful in case properties of objects in the application changes frequently.
Page Factory uses the factory class from web driver’s support library to define objects in the page in a better and simpler manner. We declare some fields on a PageObject that are Web Elements or List<Web Element>.initialize the page objects.
We can use Loadable components in the Page design providing a standard way of ensuring that pages are loaded successfully.
Together with this, we can use best practices to ensure the quality of code is highly robust, reusable and maintainable.