What is selenium? Why do we use selenium for automation?

What is Selenium?

Selenium represents an open-source framework utilized for automated testing within the software development domain. It presents an array of tools designed to automate web browsers, simplifying the process of testing web applications for performance, compatibility, and functionality. One of Selenium’s primary strengths is its compatibility with various programming languages such as Java, Python, C#, Ruby, among others. This enables testers and developers to employ Selenium’s capabilities within their preferred programming environment and language of expertise.

Why do we use Selenium for automation ?

Multi language support: Selenium supports multiple languages like Ruby, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, JavaScript, C# to create test scripts.

Cross Browser support: The most widely used browsers in today’s world are Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Edge. All the browsers are compatible with Selenium and hence we can use the same test script to test an application across multiple browsers to ensure it is working fine without having to change the scripts.

Scalability: The automation scripts in Selenium enable the coverage of wide range of test cases and scenarios and this feature ensures the maximum test coverage of applications functionality.

Reusable Test Scripts: Selenium enables testers to create reusable test scripts that help save time and effort.

Parallel Testing: Selenium supports parallel test execution allowing multiple tests to run concurrently which helps reduce the overall testing time. Selenium Grid id useful for parallel testing.

Framework availability: Frameworks in selenium facilitate easy code maintenance, improving code reusability, easy portability, lowering the cost of script maintenance,

and improving the readability of the code. Some of the frameworks include hybrid framework, data driven framework and keyword driven framework.

User Experience Testing: Selenium can simulate user interactions and behaviour, allowing testers to assess the user experience and ensure that the application is intuitive and user-friendly.

Documentation and Reporting: Selenium provides detailed test execution logs and reports making it easier to track the results.

*Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): * Selenium can be integrated into CI/CD pipelines to automate the testing of each code change.

Components of selenium:

· Selenium IDE
· Selenium RC
· Selenium WebDriver
· Selenium Grid

Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment):

This is primarily used for recording and playback for creating the selenium test cases for the user actions like clicks, selection etc. who is new to automation.

Selenium RC (Remote Controller):

This helps to design test scripts in any language of our choice. Server and client libraries are the two main components of selenium RC. The selenium RC has the following limitations.

· Browser Limitations: Selenium RC had to work with browsers using a JavaScript-based “proxy” mechanism, which introduced potential instability and limitations.

· Speed and Performance: The use of a JavaScript proxy added overhead and affected the speed and performance of test execution.

· Maintenance and Compatibility: Selenium RC required separate “drivers” for each browser, making maintenance and compatibility challenging as browser version changes for every update.

· Synchronization Issues: Selenium RC often faced synchronization problems, where test scripts had to wait for the browser to respond before proceeding to the next step.

· Complex Setup: Setting up Selenium RC involved multiple components, which could be complex and difficult to configure correctly.

Selenium WebDriver:

Selenium WebDriver is the enhanced version of Selenium RC to overcome its limitations. WebDriver communicates with browsers directly with the help of browser-specific native methods.

Selenium Grid:

Selenium grid allows users to run tests on different machines with different browsers and OS simultaneously.