An AngularJS/Angular extension to Robotframework's SeleniumLibrary
Project description
An AngularJS and Angular extension to Robotframework’s SeleniumLibrary. AngularJSLibrary primarily provides functionality to deal with waiting and thus timing issue when testing Angular based websites. The library does this by providing first an implicit wait and, subsequently, an explicit keyword for waiting on angular.
About this library
The AngularJSLibrary, despite the name including JS, supports testing against both Angular 2.0+ (known as simply Angular) and Angular 1.0 (also known as Angular JS).
This library is considered mature and feature complete. Ongoing support is provided through the Robot Framework community Slack. Thus it may appear to be abandoned or neglected for which it is not.
Please carefully read through this README in its entirety. It covers how to configure and import the library into your test scripts, use and understand its key functionality, as well as troubleshooting and debugging information.
Installation
To install AngularJSLibrary, run:
pip install robotframework-angularjsAlternatively, to install from source:
python setup.py installIdentifying the Angular root element
Prior to importing the library, one must identify the Angular root element or root component. For more information about
Here are a few examples of Angular sites and their corresponding root elements or components. The first example is from the AngularJS.org PhoneCat tutorial. The base html code is
<html lang="en" ng-app="phonecatApp">
<head>
<!-- ... -->
</head>
<body>
<div class="view-container">
<div ng-view class="view-frame"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>In the PhoneCat tutorial the html element with the ng-app attribute is the root
element. Thus for this website the root selector would be [ng-app]. The
next example is the Getting started with Angular tutorial
on angular.io site. It’s main html looks like
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<!-- ... -->
</head>
<body>
<app-root></app-root>
</body>
</html>Here the root component is the app-root element and thus the root selector for
this website would be app-root. The last example is the example tab of
the Dialog UI component
within the Angular.io Component Dev Kit (CDK).
<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en-US"><head>
<!-- ... -->
</head>
<body class="docs-app-background">
<material-docs-app></material-docs-app>
<!-- ... -->
</body></html>The root component for the Dialog component example page is the material-docs-app
element. The root selector will be material-docs-app.
Now we will use the root selector when we import the library.
Importing the library
The proper name for importing the library is AngularJSLibrary. You will
need to include the SeleniumLibrary before you import the AngularJSLibrary.
The first of two library options is root_selector. So using our first example,
the PhoneCat tutorial from AngularJS.org above, our import may look like,
*** Settings ***
Library SeleniumLibrary
Library AngularJSLibrary root_selector=[ng-app]
*** Test Cases ***
Search Through The Phone Catalog For Samsung Phones
Open Browser http://angular.github.io/angular-phonecat/step-14/app Chrome
Input Text //input Samsung
Click Link Samsung Galaxy Tab™
Element Text Should Be css:phone-detail h1 Samsung Galaxy Tab™As the default value for the root_selector argument is [ng-app], for
the PhoneCat tutorial we did not need to specify the root_selector and could
have written the Library import as
*** Settings ***
Library SeleniumLibrary
Library AngularJSLibrary
*** Test Cases ***
Search Through The Phone Catalog For Samsung Phones
Open Browser http://angular.github.io/angular-phonecat/step-14/app Chrome
Input Text //input Samsung
Click Link Samsung Galaxy Tab™
Element Text Should Be css:phone-detail h1 Samsung Galaxy Tab™If you get an “Unable to find root selector …” error then you should re-check your root_selector. Note that unlike locators used with the SeleniumLibrary the root_selector should not contain the css locator prefix.
The second library option, ignore_implicit_angular_wait, is a flag which when set to True the AngularJS Library will not wait for Angular $timeouts nor $http calls to complete when finding elements by locator. The default value is False.
If the application under test starts on a non angular page, for example a login page that is not angular which leads into an angular app, then one should start with the implicit angular wait turned off. For example,
*** Settings ***
Library SeleniumLibrary
Library AngularJSLibrary ignore_implicit_angular_wait=True
*** Test Cases ***
Login Into Non Angular Page
# ...Usage of the Waiting functionality
The AngularJS Library provides two types of waiting: a built-in implicit wait that automatically waits when using a locator strategy and then an explicit keyword that one calls out or writes into their script. In the tutorial and examples above the scripts there aren’t any expicit wait calls. Here instead the script is relying on the implicit wait which by default is turned on. This means as soon as you import the library you will have waiting enabled.
This can be demostrated by importing the library with the implicit wait turned off and using instead the library’s explicit Wait For Angular keyword.
*** Settings ***
Library SeleniumLibrary
Library AngularJSLibrary ignore_implicit_angular_wait=True
*** Test Cases ***
Search Through The Phone Catalog For Samsung Phones
Open Browser http://angular.github.io/angular-phonecat/step-14/app Chrome
Wait For Angular
Input Text //input Samsung
Wait For Angular
Click Link Samsung Galaxy Tab™
Wait For Angular
Element Text Should Be css:phone-detail h1 Samsung Galaxy Tab™With the implicit wait functionality it is expected that most of the situations
where waiting is needed will be handled “automatically” by this “hidden” implicit
wait. Thus if one examined your test case they would not see many, if any,
Wait For Angular keywords but instead would see actions keywords with no
“waiting” keywords in between actions. There are times, though, when one needs to
explicitly call out to wait for angular. For example when using a SeleniumLibrary
keyword that does not use a locator strategy, like Alert Should Be Present
and Page should contain, or if you use webelement.
In addition to the option to turn off the implicit wait on library import, you
may turn it off using the Set Ignore Implicit Angular Wait keyword with
an argument of ${True}.
Understanding and verifying the angular waits
Although the waits seem like “Magic” they are not. Let’s look into how the waits are implimented and work to gain insight as to how they work. The waits, both the implicit and explicit, poll what I call the “angular queue”. Technically it is checking that angular has “finished rendering and has no outstanding $http or $timeout calls”. It does this by checking the notifyWhenNoOutstandingRequests function for AngularJS applications. For Angular applications the library is checking the isStable function on the Angular Testibility service.
This can be seen within the log file by setting the loglevel to DEBUG or TRACE.
Rerunning the PhoneCat demo (robot --loglevel DEBUG demo_phonecat.robot)
one should see in the log file
20:01:04.658 INFO Typing text 'Samsung' into text field '//input'.
20:01:04.658 DEBUG POST http://localhost:50271/session/f75e7aaf5a00c717ae5e4af34a6ce516540611dae4b7f6079ce1a753c308cde2/execute/sync {"script": "...snip..."]}
20:01:04.661 DEBUG http://localhost:50271 "POST /session/f75e7aaf5a00c717ae5e4af34a6ce516540611dae4b7f6079ce1a753c308cde2/execute/sync HTTP/1.1" 200 14
20:01:04.661 DEBUG Remote response: status=200 | data={"value":true} | headers=HTTPHeaderDict({'Content-Length': '14', 'Content-Type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8', 'cache-control': 'no-cache'})
20:01:04.661 DEBUG Finished RequestFor space reasons I snipped out the core script on the POST execute/sync line. One should see these lines repeated several times over. This is the polling the library is doing to see if the application is ready to test. It will repeat this query till either it returns true or it will repeat till the “give up” timeout. If it gives up, it will silently and gracefully fail continuing onto the actions it was waiting to perform. It is important for the user of this library to see and understand, at a basic level, this functionality. As the primary usage are these implicit, and thus hidden, waits it is key to see how to check the library is operating properly and when it is waiting.
When using the AngularJS Library, if all waits timeout then the AngularJS Library may not wait properly with that application under test. This, recalling all previously outlined information, is telling you that the Angular app is constantly busy. This can happen depending on how the angular application is designed. It may also affect only a portion of the application so it is important to test out various parts of the application.
Further debugging techniques
In addition to using the AngularJS Library, one can use the Browser’s DevTools as a way to test out and demonstrate the core operation of the library against an application. To be clear, this is not library code but similar Javascript code which one uses outside of robot to exhibit, to a dev team for example, what the library is seeing when it querys the application. When viewing the application under test open the DevTools, preferably under Chrome, and on the Console tab type the following,
If the application is built with AngularJS or Angular 1.x then the script is
var callback = function () {console.log('*')}
var el = document.querySelector('[ng-app]');
var h = setInterval(function w4ng() {
console.log('.');
try {
angular.element(el).injector().get('$browser').
notifyWhenNoOutstandingRequests(callback);
} catch (err) {
console.log(err.message);
callback(err.message);
}
}, 10);For Angular v2+ then the script is
var callback = function () {console.log('*')}
var el = document.querySelector('material-docs-app');
var h = setInterval(function w4ng() {
console.log('.');
try {
var readyToTest = window.getAngularTestability(el).isStable();
} catch (err) {
console.log(err.message);
callback(err.message);
}
if (!readyToTest) {
callback()
} else {
console.log('.');
}
}, 10);This will display a . when “stable”. Otherwise it will show a *
when “busy”. To shut down the javascript interval and stop this script type on
the console prompt clearInterval(h);. [Chrome Browser is preferred
because repeated output within its DevTools console will be displayed as a
single line with a count versus a new line for each output making it much
easier to see and read.] I have personally used this myself both in developing
this library as well as demonstrating to various Angular developers how a
design/implementation is blocking testability.
Additional Angular Specific Locator Strategies
Note: It is no longer recommended to use these angular specific locator strategies. Although functional, the SeleniumLibrary locator strategies are more than sufficient and in most cases easier to use then these strategies. For backward compatablity reasons these will be left in but it is strongly recommended not to use.
The library provides three new locator strategies, including binding, model, and repeater.
For example, you can look for an Angular ng-binding using
Get Text binding={{greeting}}or by using partial match
Get Text binding=greetor by simply using the binding {{…}} notation
Get Text {{greeting}}One can also find elements by model
Input Text model=aboutbox Something else to write aboutFinally there is the strategy of find by repeat. This takes the general form of repeater=some ngRepeat directive@row[n]@column={{ngBinding}}. Here we specify the directive as well as the row, an zero-based index, and the column, an ngBinding. Using this full format will return, if exists the element matching the directive, row and column binding. One does not need to specify the row and column but can specify either both, one or the other or neither. In such cases the locator may return list of elements or even a list of list of elements. Also the ordering of row and column does not matter; using repeater=baz in days@row[0]@column=b is the same as repeater=baz in days@column=b @row[0].
Getting Help
If you need help with AngularJSLibrary, SeleniumLibrary, or Robot Framework usage, please reach out within the Robot Framework community Slack.
Keyword Documentation
The keyword documentation can be found on the Github project page.
Testing
For information on how we test the AngularJSLibrary see the Testing.rst file.
References
SeleniumLibrary: Web testing library for Robot Framework
Protractor: E2E test framework for Angular apps
Release history Release notifications | RSS feed
Download files
Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.
Source Distributions
Built Distribution
File details
Details for the file robotframework_angularjs-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl.
File metadata
- Download URL: robotframework_angularjs-1.0.0-py3-none-any.whl
- Upload date:
- Size: 17.4 kB
- Tags: Python 3
- Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
- Uploaded via: twine/5.0.0 CPython/3.9.13
File hashes
| Algorithm | Hash digest | |
|---|---|---|
| SHA256 | d3a834d0475e48adfa3d67decc7c9f3771469745757796bdc09210224c54be20 |
|
| MD5 | fafc63dfd39a77ebddf8fc4ba93addb7 |
|
| BLAKE2b-256 | 5a9cd4e3b22cef23b35273c7c4898a38949b1d2052922fd389d7115bb90721f5 |
