This is a work in progress. Please feel free to ask questions and/or -provide answers; send email to the Selenium users email address at selenium-users@lists.public.thoughtworks.org.
-It is used for functional or system testing web applications. These tests -are also sometimes called acceptance, customer, or integration tests. Selenium is not meant for unit testing.
-Question: -I was trying to write a simple script that does a google search. -I have been running into all sorts of problems. Does this work for you? -Here is my test:
| Test Type - |
- ||
| open | -http://www.google.com/ | -- |
| type | -q | -testing tools | -
| click | -submitButton | -- |
Answer: -The quick answer is that because of cross-site scripting security built into -JavaScript engines in all browsers, you can't edit the content of a web page -from another domain. The foreign page will probably load correctly and be visible -in the test runner window, but Selenium won't be able to query or edit its contents. -In other words, you can't run selenium on "foo.com" and -run a test that edits values and clicks buttons against "bar.com". So, in -its current form, you can't "script" google.com because your script isn't -currently hosted on google.com. When Selenium and the application you are -testing is hosted on the same domain, however, you do not run into the -cross-site scripting security feature/limitation.
-You read more about cross-site scripting here: http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/JavaScript/JavaScript-Security/
-Also, if cross-site scripting security didn't exist, be careful about your -field and button references in your tests. The current version -of Selenium uses the "id" attribute of the object you are referring to in your -test. The search field and submit button at google.com have "name" attributes, -but not not "id" attributes. Therefore, Selenium wouldn't be able to find the objects. -Future versions of Selenium will be able to search for objects by more than -just the id attribute, though.
-There are a few ways around cross-site scripting to access a remote server. -You could use a combination of proxying and URL rewriting in Apache to -trick the browser into the thinking the application and the testing tool -are coming from the same domain.
-Another option is to run Selenium as an "HTA" application, or "HTML -Application" in Internet Explorer. HTA applications run in the security -context of any trusted application on the client, so there is no cross-site -scripting limitation. (You can find out more here: -http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/hta/overview/htaoverview.asp) The -equivalent to this "security-free" client on the Mozilla side of the fence -would be to write a XUL wrapper/extension.
-Also, please see the answer to the related question: "Why can't I script google.com".
-The developers on the Selenium project use Mozilla Composer to -create plain HTML text files for their tests. -By default, Mozilla Composer writes very clean HTML without any extra, unnecessary markup.
-Future versions of Selenium may support RST (ReStructred Text), or wiki-table -syntax, natively. However, you are free to use another format now, -as long as you remember to generate the HTML files from your source files, -either during your build process or dynamically at run-time.
-| Author: | Jason Huggins | -
|---|---|
| Created Date: | 11/05/2004 | -
| Modified Date: | 11/05/2004 | -
| Created With: | reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html | -