The terms Java and Selenium are very popular, with the latter using it to enhance its performance. Also, Selenium is an open-source tool that ensures automatic testing for web applications. Selenium allows automatic testing of all the web applications running across different browsers. However, software testers use Selenium only for web applications as it is incompatible with testing mobile and desktop apps.
Why Java and Selenium?
The presence of rich ecosystems and libraries, compatibility with cross-platform and cross-browser, scalable solutions, capability of parallel execution, and, importantly, the object-oriented programming approach are some reasons for increasing preference for Java in Selenium applications.
Testing Automation:
Automating the testing process enables automation execution of test cases, enhancing test coverage, effectiveness, and efficiency. It reduces human inaccuracies significantly while improving production proficiency. The combination of Java and Selenium automates the testing of web applications. The integration occurs by writing Selenium scripts in Java programming. Doing so enables the automation of repetitive tasks and, simultaneously, enables them to interact conveniently with web pages.
Java and Selenium: What are the exceptional features in Java that support automating software testing?
Independent Platform:
JVM is an important sub-set of JRE that facilitates Java’s exhibiting platform independence. JVM supports Java to run on any platform, regardless of the underlying operative system and hardware specifications. Therefore, Selenium tools that are written in Java can execute across any operating system, such as Linx, macOS, and Windows.
Integration with Testing Frameworks:
The process of integration with testing frameworks allows the integration of two diverse software modules into a single entity. Furthermore, they are again tested for compatibility for ensuring they work together.
JUnit or TestNG are the most popular frameworks in Java and Selenium integration. They allow structuring the tests, performing assertions, defining test suites, and managing test reports. At the same time, these frameworks reinforce annotations like @Before and @Test, enabling the systematic organizing and management of tests.
Incorporate with CI or CD Tools:
Using tools like CircleCI, GitLab CI, and Jenkins guarantees pipelines’ Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration, ensuring automatic execution of tests in the event of code changes. It helps to enhance software quality and efficiency.
Configuring Jenkins to Selenium Java tests while running across various environments ensures the generation of results during practical application. It also aids in early bug detection along with efficient execution of tests.
Reusability:
The programmers can access certain flexible features, enabling the reuse of page objects across multiple test scripts.
Maintainability:
Here, developers can make changes across the web pages without using test scripts by only updating the page object classes.
Error Handling:
Java helps handle errors and exceptions when executing the tests in Selenium. For example: try-catch blocks enable to catch exceptions such as TimeoutException, NoSuchElementExceptions, and others. Furthermore, there is an option to elaborate test execution reports by integrating them with reporting tools such as Allure and ExtenReports.
Interaction with Browser:
By using Java along with Selenium, there is an option to execute JavaScript directly on the browser. Such a facility extends the capabilities, particularly while interacting with dynamic elements and performing activities that otherwise mandate JavaScript execution.
Java and Selenium: Improve Reliability:
Generally, using Selenium alone increases the risk of waiting to extend the time for enabling elements to be clickable or appear. However, Java introduces new mechanisms such as Implicit and Explicit waits that helps in handling synchronization issues effectively. These mechanisms allow dynamic waiting of the tests until meeting the conditions, enhancing the overall reliability.
Data Driven Testing:
Java and Selenium allows the implementation of data-driven testing. Java is instrumental in enabling such an approach as it integrates with extensive libraries such as CSV files for reading databases and Apache POI for Excel files. It is especially useful while running the same test case using different data sets.
Parallel Test Execution:
In some cases where there is a need to run large test suites, there may be a need to run those tests in parallel across several devices or browsers. Handling such complicated tasks is made easy using Java as it can integrate with Junit or TestNG tools. It allows the configuration and running of the tests concurrently, allowing to speed up the entire execution process of large test suites.
Page Object Model (POM):
The test automation uses a design pattern known as Page Object Model (POM) to create object-oriented classes. Subsequently, they work as an interface for web pages. Therefore, Java programming language is extensively used for implementing such important POM patterns in Selenium because Java offers various advantages, including reusability, maintainability, and separation of test logic from the UI structure.
Cross Browser Testing:
Java and Selenium allow the use of various webDriver implementations, extending the capabilities towards performing cross-browser testing. The interaction with different browsers is possible simply by writing code in Java. By enabling WebDriver implementations, Java code makes the entire test execution possible across various browsers.