roughsoft/selenium-java-bootstrap

The purpose of this project is to have a basic project with minimum viable testing architecture to automated web tests using Selenium WebDriver and Java as the programming language.

Languages and Frameworks

This project using the following languages and frameworks:

Java 11 as the programming language
TestNG as the UnitTest framework to support the test creation
Seleium WebDriver as the web browser automation framework using the Java binding
AsseertJ as the fluent assertion library
Allure Report as the testing report strategy
JavaFaker as the faker data generation strategy
Log4J2 as the logging manage strategy
WebDriverManager as the Selenium binaries management
Owner to minimize the code to handle the properties file
Lombok to minimize the boilerplate in the Java code

Test architecture

We know that any automation project starting with a good test architecture. This project can be your initial test architecture for a faster start. You will see the following items in this architecture:

Page Objects pattern
Execution types
BaseTest
TestListener
Logging
Configuration files
Parallel execution
Test Data Factory
Profiles executors on pom.xml
Pipeline as a code

Do you have any other item to add on this test architecture? Please do a pull request or open an issue to discuss

Page Objects pattern

I will not explain the Page Object pattern because you can find a lot of good explanations and examples on the internet. Instead, I will explain what exactly about page objects I'm using in this project.

AbstractPageObject

This class has a protected constructor to remove the necessity to init the elements using the Page Factory. Also, it sets the timeout from the timeout property value located on general.properties file.

All the Page Object classes should extend the AbstractPageObject. It also tries to remove the driver object from the Page Object class as much as possible.

Important information

There's a NavigationPage on the common package inside the Page Objects. Notice that all the pages extend this one instead of the AbstractPageObject. I implemented this way:

because the previous and next buttons are fixed on the page (there's no refresh on the page)

to avoid create or pass the new reference to the NavigationPage when we need to hit previous or next buttons

As much as possible avoid this strategy to not get an ElementNotFoundException or StaleElementReferenceException. Use this approach if you know that the page does not refresh.

Execution types

There are two execution types: local and remote. For both, there's a factory class DriverFactory to resolve if the execution is local or remote based on the target property value located on general.properties file.

The class DriverManager create a ThreadLocal for the WebDriver instance, to make sure there's no conflict when we run it in parallel.

Local execution

This execution type uses WebDriverManager class to instantiate the web browsers.

The class LocalDriverManager create a browser instance from the value placed on the browser property on the local.properties file. It matches the browser name with an internal Enum type on WebDriverManager.

Remote execution

This execution type uses RemoteDriverManager class to connect on the remote grid and create the browser instance.

The approach of the remote execution here was created to enable the parallel execution, but if you set the target property value to grid and run a test it will work because if there's no explicit browser in use, Google Chrome will be used. You can check this on the BaseWeb class.

You must pay attention to the two required information regarding the remote execution: the grid.url and grid.port property values on the grid.properties file. You must update these values before the start.

If you are using the docker-compose.yml file to start the Zalenium grid, the values on the grid.property file should work.

Please take a look at the Parallel Execution section.

BaseTest

This testing pattern was implemented on the BaseWeb class to automatically run the pre (setup) and post (teardown) conditions.

The pre-condition uses @BeforeMethod from TestNG creates the browser instance based on the values passed either local or remote execution. The post-condition uses @AfterMethod to close the browser instance. Both have the alwaysRun parameter as true to force the run on a pipeline.

Pay attention that it was designed to open a browser instance to each @Test located on the test class.

This class also the TestListener that is a custom TestNG listener, and will be described in the next section.

TestListener

The TestListener is a class that implements ITestListener. The following method is in use to help logging errors and attach additional information on the test report:

onTestStart: add the browser information into the test report
onTestFailure: log the exceptions and add a screenshot on the test report
onTestSkipped: add the skipped test on the log

Logging

All the log is done by the Log4J using the @Log4j2 annotation.

The log4j2.properties has two strategies: console and file. A file with all the log information will be automatically created on the user folder with test_automation.log filename. If you want to change it, update the appender.file.fileName property value.

The log.error is used to log all the exceptions this architecture might throw. Use log.info or log.debug to log important information, like the users automatically generated by the factory BookingDataFactory

Parallel execution

The parallel test execution is based on the parallel tests feature on TestNG. This is in use on the multi_browser.xml test suite file by the parallel="tests" attribute and value, which means each test item inside the test suite will execute in parallel. The browser in use for each test should be defined by a parameter, like:

<parameter name="browser" value="chrome"/>

You can define any parallel strategy.

It can be an excellent combination together with the grid strategy.

Configuration files

This project uses a library called Owner. You can find the class related to the property file reader in the following classes:

There are 3 properties (configuration) files located on src/main/java/resources/conf:

general.properties: general configuration as the target execution, base url, timeout, and faker locale
grid.properties: url and port for the Selenium grid usage (Zalenium)
local.properties: browser to use in the local execution

The properties were divided into three different ones to better separate the responsibilities and enable the changes easy without have a lot of properties inside a single file.

Test Data Factory

Is the utilization of the Factory design pattern with the Fluent Builder to generate dynamic data. The BookingDataFactory has only one factory createBookingData returning a Booking object with dinamyc data.

This dynamic data is generated by JavaFaker filling all the fields using the Build pattern. The Booking the class uses Lombok to reduce the boilerplate, easily providing getters, setters, constructors, and the build pattern.

Reading reference: https://reflectoring.io/objectmother-fluent-builder

Profiles executors on pom.xml

There is a profile called multi-browser created to execute the test suite multi_browser.xml inside src/test/resources/suites folder. To execute this suite, via command line you can call the parameter -P and the profile id.

Eg: executing the multi_browser suite

mvn test -Pmulti-browser

If you have more than one suite on src/test/resources/suites folder you can parameterize the xml file name. To do this you need:

Create a property on pom.xml called suite

    <properties>
        <suite>multi_browser</suite>
    </properties>

Change the profile id

<profile>
   <id>web_execution</id>
</profile>

Replace the xml file name to ${suite} on the profile

<configuration>
   <suiteXmlFiles>
      <suiteXmlFile>src/test/resources/suites/${suite}.xml</suiteXmlFile>
   </suiteXmlFiles>
</configuration>

Use -Dsuite=suite_name to call the suite

mvn test -Pweb_execution -Dsuite=multi_browser

Pipeline as a code

The two files of pipeline as a code are inside pipeline_as_code folder.

Jenkins: Jenkinsfile to be used on a Jenkins pipeline
GitLab CI: .gitlab-ci.yml to be used on a GitLab CI

roughsoft / selenium-java-bootstrap