Jan 12, 2018
If you've seen my github account, you'd likely note that I like trying all the automation tools, and see the value in most. And why would you not try 'em all? Case-in-point: today I played around with an interesting--SPOILER: if not tragically flawed--automation tool called Cypress.
Yeah, I don't mean to be a downer; I say this hoping to save others the time I spent today... if you need to switch/handle multiple tabs/windows/iframes in a browser for your tests, Cypress will NEVER allow you to do this. They state as much on their website, in the Trade-Offs section. Given its massive ramifications, perhaps it should be stated more upfront?
Cypress is an interesting bit of tech; especially since it doesn't require Selenium/Webdriver; has built-in implicit waits, and other goodies. The long and the short of it is, I don't see how this tool could ever take the place of any webdriver-based tool, given its current limitations, but if those don't bother you, take a look!
Sep 14, 2017
The weather is always most beautiful... the last week of a sprint. I need a waterproof laptop, with wireless broadband, available everywhere on the planet (though I'd settle for just all of Wisconsin). Is that too much to ask?
Mar 2, 2017
In my example test automation code, I generally setup the tests to run against my own server. I feel that it would be downright rude to have random folks running these tests against my digital neighbors. I'm happy to have them run against my server... I mean, it's kind of the point of the thing.
The downside is when folks start tinkering with the code... and maybe change a locator within a loop to see what happens. Like my friend in India @ 202.88.222.186 likely did this morning (well... my morning, anyway), and started PEGGING MY SERVER :)
It's fine... I do appreciate the accidental load testing...
Feb 21, 2017
My--now former--web host decided to triple my annual rate, come renewal time, which was the impetus for me to finally move my sites to my own server. So over this past long weekend, I finalized the move over to my favorite cloud server co., DigitalOcean ($10 promo code link!).
It ended up being pretty fun... in a nerdy kinda way. I decided to go with LEMP, over LAMP, and I gotta say, NGINX is pretty fantastic. I'm also making use of CloudFlare, a CDN, DNS, security, performance wünderkind! And it's FREE.
Anywho, if you notice anything not working on the site, please ping me using one of the contacts in the sidebar. TANKS!
Dec 18, 2016
If you've worked with E2E tests for any amount of time, you will have experienced tests that, for whatever reason, randomly fail; aka flakey tests. Such failures can be caused by any number of things: a network glitch, browser barf, app hiccup, act of God, etc...
Test flake can seriously undermine the trust in automation, and drive your automation engineer to drink (or perhaps just drink more). A wise test engineer will embrace that flake happens, and account for it in their automation strategy.
One popular strategy is to re-run failed tests. This way, if a test fails, it gets re-run 'n' number of times, and if it passes, life is good. Enter Protractor-Flake.
Protractor-Flake parses your Protractor test output, looking for failures, and re-runs any failing tests (note: at the spec file level) at the end of your test run. It works really well and is simple to setup. Here's how...
First install it as a dependency:
npm install protractor-flake --save
Then you can run it directly by using it in place of Protractor (note: the '--' denotes the end of args passed to protractor-flake, and the beginning of args passed to Protractor):
node\_modules/.bin/protractor-flake -- conf.js
Or you can use it programmatically. I like to create a simple node script, which allows me to add logging and reporting (future blog post). Here's an example:
#!/usr/bin/env node
var protractorFlake = require('protractor-flake');
// skip first two args (node and self)
var protractorArgs = process.argv.splice(2);
protractorFlake({
protractorPath: 'node\_modules/.bin/protractor',
maxAttempts: 2,
parser: 'standard',
nodeBin: 'node',
protractorArgs: protractorArgs
}, function(status, output) {
process.exit(status);
});
Saving the above script as a file, 'flake', you could then run your tests thusly:
./flake conf.js --baseUrl=http://qualityshepherd.com
Now obviously, you should be killing off flakey tests to the best of your ability, but Protractor-Flake can save you from non-test-related flakiness, and keep your tests green! You can see a working example in my protractor-example repo on GitHub.
Dec 11, 2016
Quick Tip: I run Protractor tests, headlessly via XVFB, on a Ubuntu server (blog post on this to come), and was seeing Chrome annoyingly hang during test runs. I was constantly having to manually kill the chrome processes, and also an associated BrowserBlocking process. After a bunch of debugging, and searching, I finally found the solution. This simple env var fixes it:
export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=/dev/null
Just add that to your .profile file, and you should be good to go.
Feb 14, 2016
Page objects, for lack of a better word, are good. Page objects are right. Page objects work.
And if you're writing e2e tests, you should know what they are, and how to use them. Let's page object!
What is it?
You'll find a veritable plethora of definitions and examples on the webs... or TLDR: page objects create a user-centric model of your application.
Why should I care?
This page object model is then used to manipulate your application, abstracting away the html/css from your tests. The benefits are many:
- saves maintenance time: updating the page object updates all tests that use it
- organizes your code and keeps it DRY
- declutters your spec files by moving logic to the page object
- use a cool buzzword that is actually useful!
How to page object?
A simple page object:
var GithubPage = function() {
this.username = $('div.vcard-username');
// Webdriver equivilant to hitting Enter/Return key.
this.hitEnter = function() {
return browser.actions().sendKeys(protractor.Key.ENTER).perform();
};
};
module.exports = new GithubPage();
Let's go line by line...
var GithubPage = function() {
We use a constructor to create our page object. We could (and I sometimes do) use an object literal, but not when I'm extending a basePage (a topic for another post).
this.username = $('div.vcard-username');
Here we start creating our model by setting this.username to our app's css (using Protractor's JQuery-like $ locator).
The idea here is that in our tests, we'll call this property, githubPage.username, to refer to the app's css code. This save us from having raw selectors (eg. $('div.vcard-username') ) strewn about in our tests. Thus, if (when) the css changes in your application, you simply update the page object, and you're green again. No hunting for uses through tests. It also makes your tests read better, and just look cleaner. You should never have raw selectors in you tests... keep 'em in the page object.
We'll also put methods in our page object:
// Webdriver equivilant to hitting Enter/Return key.
this.hitEnter = function() {
return browser.actions().sendKeys(protractor.Key.ENTER).perform();
};
We'll also add methods to our page objects. Here we create a method for hitting the enter key; something we'll use throughout our tests. This not only keeps wonky looking webdriver code out of our tests, it also keeps our code DRY.
Examples of when you might want to add a method to your page object:
- actions you'll using in multiple tests
- actions that take multiple steps: eg. enter search text and hit return
- wrap selectors or wonky looking webdriver code
- wrap another method and add logging or whatnot to it
module.exports = new GithubPage();
And finally, we use Node's module.exports to create a reference to our page, that will allow us to require it in our tests. Note, we also instantiate it here, by using the new keyword and parenthesis. I'm not a fan of instantiating a page object within a test... it's cruft that should be done elsewhere whenever possible.
That's the basic gist. For more examples, take a peek at my working Protractor example project up on GitHub...
