DDT (Data-driven Testing) with Python Selenium Webdriver is very easy! DDT becomes very useful if you have test cases that contains the same test steps. All values could outsourced into files or databases. This tutorial use CSV files.

Precondition

• Python installed
• selenium and ddt library installed

Example

The folder structure for this tutorial looks like:

├── data
│   └── scenario_a.csv
├── library
│   ├── GetData.py
│   └── __init__.py
├── scenarios
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── scenario_a.py
└── testsuite.py

Into folder “data” we store the csv files. The packages “library” include a function to read the specific csv files and the package “scenarios” include the test cases. The test suite is on root folder.

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf8 -*-

import unittest

from scenarios.scenario_a import TestScenarioA


# load test cases
scenario_a = unittest.TestLoader().loadTestsFromTestCase(TestScenarioA)

# create test suite
test_suite = unittest.TestSuite([scenario_a])

# execute test suite
unittest.TextTestRunner(verbosity=2).run(test_suite)

Into the “testsuite.py” we add all test cases provided by scenario package.

data folder

target_url,elem_name,search_value
http://softwaretester.info,s,python
http://softwaretester.info,s,selenium
http://softwaretester.info,s,webdriver
http://softwaretester.info,s,automation

The CSV stores the test data that we supplied to the @data decorator of test case.

library package

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf8 -*-

__author__ = 'lupin'

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf8 -*-

import csv


def get_csv_data(csv_path):
    """
    read test data from csv and return as list

    @type csv_path: string
    @param csv_path: some csv path string
    @return list
    """
    rows = []
    csv_data = open(str(csv_path), "rb")
    content = csv.reader(csv_data)

    # skip header line
    next(content, None)

    # add rows to list
    for row in content:
        rows.append(row)

    return rows

Just for read the csv and return the values as a list.

scenarios package

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf8 -*-

__author__ = 'lupin'

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf8 -*-

import unittest

from selenium import webdriver
from ddt import ddt, data, unpack

from library.GetData import get_csv_data


@ddt
class TestScenarioA(unittest.TestCase):
    """ inheriting the TestCase class"""

    @classmethod
    def setUpClass(cls):
        """test preparation"""
        cls.driver = webdriver.Firefox()
        cls.driver.implicitly_wait(3)
        cls.driver.set_window_size(450, 500)

    @data(*get_csv_data('./data/scenario_a.csv'))
    @unpack
    def test_search(self, target_url, elem_name, search_value):
        """test case for scenario a"""
        driver = self.driver
        driver.get(target_url)

        btn_elem = driver.find_element_by_id('search-toggle')
        btn_elem.click()

        input_elem = driver.find_element_by_name(elem_name)
        input_elem.clear()
        input_elem.send_keys(search_value)
        input_elem.submit()

    @classmethod
    def tearDownClass(cls):
        """clean up"""
        cls.driver.close()

Test case with @ddt (for classes), @data and @unpack (for methods) decorators.

• @data take the arguments from csv file
• @unpack unpacks tuples or lists into multiple arguments

The test_search() method accepts the arguments, which will be mapped to the tuple values by ddt.

Run

$ python -B testsuite.py

This introduction should give you some hints about Python and Selenium WebDriver. I will use this in following tutorials as a base.

Preconditions

• Python installed
• pip (package manager) installed
• Editor or IDE installed

Preparation

As first step simply install or upgrade the Selenium package.

# install or upgrade selenium
$ pip install -U selenium

# get information about package
$ pip show selenium

This is a fairly simple process. After the successful command execution you will have the Selenium WebDriver client library on your machine with all that is needed to create automated scripts.

The first script

Now start using the unittest library. The script comments help to describe the code.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import unittest
from selenium import webdriver


class SearchContentOnWebsite(unittest.TestCase):
    """define a class that inherits the TestCase class"""

    def setUp(self):
        """perform some tasks at the start of each test"""
        # create a new Firefox session
        self.driver = webdriver.Firefox()
        # wait for a certain amount of time
        self.driver.implicitly_wait(30)
        # maximize browser window
        self.driver.maximize_window()
        # navigate to the start URL
        self.driver.get("http://softwaretester.info")

    def test_search_headline(self):
        """a very simple test case"""
        link_text = 'Modern Status Plugin'
        title = 'Jenkins - Modern Status Plugin | - Softwaretester -'
        # find a element with partial text
        elem = self.driver.find_element_by_partial_link_text(link_text)
        # click element
        elem.click()
        # assert that title have value
        assert title in self.driver.title

    def tearDown(self):
        """method to clean up any initialized values after the test"""
        # close the browser window
        self.driver.close()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main(verbosity=2)

Run Test

To run the test simple call your script.

./my_first_test.py

# or
python my_first_test.py