Selenium-RC:
Tutorial
This Selenium Remote Contrtol tutorial will teach you how to start
the Selenium Server from the command line, and how to use the Server in
interactive mode. It assumes that you are familiar with running programs from
the command line. At the end, we'll demonstrate how to write a simple test that
does the same thing as what we did in interactive mode.
The Selenium Server is written in Java, and requires the Java
Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.5.0 or higher in order to start. You may
already have it installed. Try running this from the command line:
java -version
You should see a brief message telling you what version of Java is
installed, like this:
java version "1.5.0_07"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_07-b03)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_07-b03, mixed mode)
If you see an error message
instead, you may need to install the JRE, or you may need to
add it to your PATH environment variable.
For this example, you'll also need to make sure that you have a supported
browser installed.
Windows: If you're on Windows XP or Windows 2003, you can just use
Internet Explorer for this example, or install Mozilla Firefox or Opera. If
you're using Windows 2000, you'll need to install
reg.exe in order to use Internet Explorer, but Firefox should work
regardless. We recommend (but do not require) that you add your browser
executable to your PATH environment variable. (If you do not explicitly add
your browser's installation directory to the PATH, then you must install your
browser in its standard location; Firefox's standard location is
"c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"; Internet Explorer's
standard location is "c:\Program Files\Internet
Explorer\iexplore.exe".)
Unix/Linux: For this tutorial, install Firefox and
add the Firefox directory to your PATH environment variable. Note that on
Unix/Linux we'll be trying to invoke "firefox-bin" directly, so make
sure that executable is on the path; also don't forget to add the
Firefox libraries to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. If needed, we can invoke Firefox
using a shell script (e.g. "firefox" or "run-mozilla.sh"),
but in that case, we may not be able to stop Firefox until the server is shut
down.
Mac OS X: On Mac OS X, it should be enough to install Firefox.app in your
/Applications directory. Note in order to control the browser accurately, we
need to invoke the embedded Firefox executable (firefox-bin) directly in
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS; if your browser isn't installed
there, then you'll want to add the correct embedded location to your PATH
environment variable as well as your DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
Interactive
Mode
Selenium Server
"interactive mode" is a way of rapidly prototyping tests that
requires no coding whatsoever, so it's a good way to introduce new users to
Selenium Remote Control. In interactive mode, you type your commands one by one
into the Selenium Server command window; this allows you to immediately see the
results of running your command in a working browser, on-the-spot. With that
said, normally you'll be coding these tests in your favorite programming
language, so the whole thing is completely automated.
Once you've got Java installed and ready to go, you can start the
Selenium Server from the command line like this:
java -jar selenium-server.jar -interactive
That will start the Selenium Server and allow you to type commands
in the command window. After a number of log messages, you should see the
following message:
Entering
interactive mode... type Selenium commands here (e.g:
cmd=open&1=http://www.yahoo.com)
Let's begin by using Selenium Server to open up a browser. If
you're on Windows and want to run your Selenium commands using Internet Explorer,
try typing this:
cmd=getNewBrowserSession&1=*iexplore&2=http://www.google.com
If you want to use Firefox, try this:
cmd=getNewBrowserSession&1=*firefox&2=http://www.google.com
You're running the "getNewBrowserSession" command, using
the browser of your choice (*iexplore for Internet Explorer, *firefox for
Firefox, or *opera for Opera), starting at www.google.com. Typing commands in
this window automatically fires off HTTP web requests to the Selenium Server,
requesting work to be done. (In non-interactive mode, you can use any automated
tool you like to send these HTTP requests to the server, instead of typing them
by hand.) When you press Enter, you'll see a message describing the request you
just made:
---> Requesting http://localhost:4444/selenium-server/driver?cmd=getNewBrowserSession&1=*firefox&2=http://www.google.com
If all goes well, you should see a new browser window starting
with the browser of your choice. Back in the Selenium Server command window,
you should see the following message:
Got
result: OK,260113 on session 260113
(If this doesn't happen, you may need to take a look at our fine Troubleshooting
guide.)
The first part of this message "Got result: OK" says
that your request for work was successful. The second part of this message, the
number, is a Session ID. The Session ID will be different every time you run
the "getNewBrowserSession" command from the command line.
Let's try some more commands; let's do a Google search! We'll
start by opening up the Google website. Type this in the Selenium Server
command window, replacing the Session ID below with the number you got when you
ran "getNewBrowserSession":
cmd=open&1=http://www.google.com/webhp&sessionId=260113
When this command finishes, your browser window should reveal
google.com in the lower frame. (The /webhp makes sure we stay on
www.google.com; otherwise, we might get redirected to a country-specific Google
server, e.g., www.google.fr.) Don't forget that you need to replace the
Session ID above with your own personal Session ID, the one you got when you
ran the "getNewBrowserSession" command.
Now that Google is open, let's try typing something in the search
box. Type this in the Selenium Server command window:
cmd=type&1=q&2=hello world&sessionId=260113
Again, don't forget to replace the Session ID with your own
Session ID. If all goes to plan, you should see "hello world" in the
search box for your Google search.
Now, let's do a search!
cmd=click&1=btnG&sessionId=260113
You should now see the results of your Google Search in your
browser window. You can run dozens of Selenium commands to automate all manner
of browsing tasks. For more information on particular commands, you can go look
at the Selenium Core section at
the Open QA website, or check out the reference materials available for any of
our Client Drivers (Java,
.NET, Perl, PHP, Python or Ruby).
The next thing we might want to do is read some information back
out of the page... for example, let's retrieve the HTML title of the current
page, like this:
cmd=getTitle&sessionId=260113
The browser will return the title of the HTML page we've loaded,
like this:
Got
result: OK,hello world - Google Search on session 260113
That's enough Interactive Mode for now; let's move on to writing
some code! But before we go, let's stop the browser we started. Type this command
in the Selenium Server command window:
cmd=testComplete&sessionId=260113
When this command finishes, your browser window should
automatically close. To quit the Selenium Server, type "quit" or just
press Ctrl-C.
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