Selenium – Use Assertions to Verify the Test Output



In Software Testing we need to verify the output of test case against a predefined set of Test Data. Selenium provides various Selenese commands to achieve this.  Let us try to explore some of the situations we come across in Test Automation.

1. Verify whether an object is visible (such as a button, link, etc)
2. Verify whether a checkbox is checked or unchecked.
3. Check if an object is present on the screen
4. Check if an Editbox is editable (i.e. we can key in values into edit box)
5. Check if a particular value is selected in the dropdown box

Selenium provides several different APIs for automating the Assertions.

I have created a sample web site and uploaded to Google docs.  Download link

Download the sample web site and unzip into a folder.  I will be using the same web site in my sample Selenium code.

Following are some of the Selenium assertions:

1. assertAlertPresent – checks whether an alert is present
2. assertAllButtons – compares the buttons present on the screen with the provided values in the test
3. assertAllLinks – compares all the links present on the screen with the one’s given in the test
4. assertChecked – verifies whether the particular checkbox is checked
5. assertEditable – verifies the Edit box whether it is possible to key in values into the edit box
6. assertSelectedValue – compares the given value with the selected value in the specified dropdown

Let us try to use these assertions in the Selenium Test by recording a test.  After recording we will export them into JUnit format and compare them to the recorded test in the table format in Selenium IDE.

In the above picture we can see the exact commands used in the Selenium IDE for assertions whereas in the below code which is exported in JUnit format from the Selenium IDE, only assertTrue and assertEquals are present.  Here, other selenium methods such as selenium.getSelectedLabel("city"), selenium.isTextPresent("Name of the Customer"), and selenium.getAlert() are used for assertions.

package com.selftechy.assertions;

/*
 * Author - Seetaram Hegde
 */
import com.thoughtworks.selenium.*;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.Assert;

public class SeleniumAssertions extends SeleneseTestCase {
	@Before
	public void setUp() throws Exception {
		selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*chrome", "http://www.sqajobs.com/");
		selenium.start();
		selenium.windowMaximize();
	}

	@Test
	public void testAssertions() throws Exception {
		//change the below directory path to the one where you have unzipped the sample website files 
		selenium.open("file:///F:/Helios-Workspace/Sample%20Website/CreateAccount.htm");
		selenium.type("FirstName", "seetaram");
		selenium.type("Lname", "hegde");
		selenium.type("street", "HSR Layout");
		selenium.click("male");
		selenium.click("kannada");
		selenium.click("english");
		selenium.click("hindi");
		selenium.click("Save");
		assertEquals("New Account Created", selenium.getAlert());
		selenium.click("link=Click to View Customer Information");
		selenium.waitForPageToLoad("30000");
		Thread.sleep(200);
		assertTrue(selenium.isTextPresent("Below table contains the information about the Customer's transactions"));
		assertTrue(selenium.isTextPresent("Name of the Customer"));
		selenium.click("link=Go to Account Creation Screen");
		selenium.waitForPageToLoad("30000");
		Thread.sleep(200);
		assertEquals("Bangalore", selenium.getSelectedLabel("city"));
	}

	@After
	public void tearDown() throws Exception {
		//selenium.stop();
	}
}

Use the following Selenium APIs for assertions:

1. selenium.isTextPresent() – To verify whether the specified text is present
2. selenium.getAlert() – To close the Javascript alert
3. selenium.getSelectedLabel() – To get the selected label (dropdown option) from the dropdown
4. selenium.chooseOkOnNextConfirmation() – To click the OK button on the Javascript alert
5. selenium.chooseCancelOnNextConfirmation() – To click the Cancel button on the Javascript alert
6. selenium.doubleClick(“Locator”) – double click an object
7. selenium.isChecked("locator") – Verify whether a checkbox is checked or not
8. selenium.isEditable("locator") – Verify whether an Editbox is editable or not
9. selenium.isElementPresent("locator") – This is a very much useful Selenium method.  Whenever there is a need to wait for some time to load the page then we can use this API in conjunction with Thread.sleep()
10. selenium.isVisible() – To verify whether the object is visible

There are some more Selenium APIs available but above are the one’s which are most regularly used.