webdrivermanager 0.7.1

Module for facilitating download and deploy of WebDriver binaries.

Python module to facilitate downloading and deploying WebDriver binaries. The classes in this module can be used to automatically search for and download the latest version (or a specific version) of a WebDriver binary and then extract it and place it by copying or symlinking it to the location where Selenium or other tools should be able to find it then.

Installation

This module is available on the Python Package Index (PyPI) and can be installed as follows:

pip install webdrivermanager

Dependencies

This module is dependent on the following additional packages:

• requests

• tqdm

• lxml

• appdirs

Classes

The following classes are available:

• ChromeDriverManager for downloading and installing chromedriver (for Google Chrome).

• GeckoDriverManager for downloading and installing geckodriver (for Mozilla Firefox).

• OperaChromiumDriverManager for downloading and installing operadriver (for Chromium based Opera browsers).

• EdgeDriverManager for downloading and installing edgedriver (for Microsoft Edge).

Status

Currently being developed/tested using Python 2.7.15 and 3.7 on macOS, Windows & Linux

Example module usage

Example:

>>> from webdrivermanager import GeckoDriverManager
>>> gdd = GeckoDriverManager()
>>> gdd.download_and_install()
1524kb [00:00, 1631.24kb/s]
('/Users/rasjani/webdriver/geckodriver-v0.20.1-macos/geckodriver', '/Users/rasjani/bin/geckodriver')
>>> gdd.download_and_install("v0.20.0")
1501kb [00:02, 678.92kb/s]
Symlink /Users/rasjani/bin/geckodriver already exists and will be overwritten.
('/Users/rasjani/webdriver/geckodriver-v0.20.0-macos/geckodriver', '/Users/rasjani/bin/geckodriver')
>>> gdd.download_and_install()
Symlink /Users/rasjani/bin/geckodriver already exists and will be overwritten.
('/Users/rasjani/webdriver/geckodriver-v0.20.1-macos/geckodriver', '/Users/rasjani/bin/geckodriver')
>>>

Command line tool

There is a command-line tool that is also available. After installing the package, it can be used as follows (Windows example):

> webdrivermanager chrome:2.38 firefox opera:v.2.35
Downloading WebDriver for browser: 'chrome'
3300kb [00:00, 11216.38kb/s]
Driver binary downloaded to: C:\Users\rasjani\webdriver\chrome\2.38\2.38%2Fchromedriver_win32\chromedriver.exe
Driver copied to: C:\Users\rasjani\bin\chromedriver.exe

Downloading WebDriver for browser: 'firefox'
3031kb [00:01, 2253.64kb/s]
Driver binary downloaded to: C:\Users\rasjani\webdriver\gecko\v0.20.1\geckodriver-v0.20.1-win64\geckodriver.exe
Driver copied to: C:\Users\rasjani\bin\geckodriver.exe

Downloading WebDriver for browser: 'opera'
3548kb [00:02, 1239.02kb/s]
Driver binary downloaded to: C:\Users\rasjani\webdriver\operachromium\v.2.35\operadriver_win64\operadriver_win64\operadriver.exe
Driver copied to: C:\Users\rasjani\bin\operadriver.exe

WARNING: Path 'C:\Users\rasjani\bin' is not in the PATH environment variable.

In the above example, a version was specified for Chrome and Opera while no version was specified for Firefox so the latest version of geckodriver was implicitly downloaded.

Command line options

usage: webdrivermanager [-h] [–downloadpath F] [–linkpath F] [–os OSNAME]

browser [browser …]

Tool for downloading and installing WebDriver binaries.

positional arguments:

browser Browser to download the corresponding WebDriver

binary. Valid values are: chrome, firefox, gecko, mozilla, opera, edge. Optionally specify a version number of the WebDriver binary as follows: ‘browser:version’ e.g. ‘chrome:2.39’. If no version number is specified, the latest available version of the WebDriver binary will be downloaded.

optional arguments:

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

--downloadpath F, -d F

Where to download the webdriver binaries

--linkpath F, -l F

Where to link the webdriver binary to. Set to “AUTO” if you need some intelligence to decice where to place the final webdriver binary

--linkpath F, -l F

Where to link the webdriver binary to. Set to “AUTO” if you need some intelligense to decide where to place the final webdriver binary. If set to “SKIP”, no link/copy done

--os OSNAME, -o OSNAME

Overrides os detection with given os name

Do note that –downloadpath/-d flag location is used for storing the whole downloaded and then –linkpath/-l path location is where the final binary is either symlinled or copied to. Linkpath should be the directory you either already have in PATH or you should place there since tools using these webdrivers usually locate the appropriate webdriver binary from PATH environment variable.

If linkpath flag is set to AUTO, tool will iterate over your current PATH environment variable and tries to find the first writeable directory within it and place the copy or symlink into it. If linkpath is set to SKIP, only download is done, linking/copying is skipped.

RELEASES

• 0.2

  • Initial release, support for installing package directly to python virtualenv directory

  • Added support to set install location via –downloadpath and –linkpath options

• 0.3

  • Prevent unnecessary calls to webdriver provides when calculating download urls and paths to store them.

  • various code cleanups

• 0.4

  • Workaround to download firefox & opera webdriver when hitting github api rate limits.

  • Fixed a bug introduced in 0.3: on mac one couldnt download chrome & opera webdriver

  • setup.py fetches requirements from requirements.txt

• 0.4.1

  • bug fix for dependency installation

• 0.4.2

  • bug fix for github fallback

• 0.5.0

  • Basic support for Microsoft Edge

  • Fixed a crash if unsupported browser string was passed (for example: Safari)

• 0.6.0

  • python module exports available_drivers dict

• 0.7.0

  • internal release

• 0.7.1

  • default directories changed to use ones provided by appdirs python module.

  • if link_path is set to AUTO, try to locate a writeable directory in PATH environment variable and drop the binary there.

  • Overwrite webdriver also if it is binary (In MacOS & Linux)

  • should work now in cygwin too.

  • Code rewrite to get rid of lxml in favour of beautifulsoup. Should eaze up installation as no more compilations required.

  • code cleanups.

  • Can override platform bitness detection. Usefull if downloading binaries for other platforms.

  • Can override link creation. Usefull if downloading binaries for other platforms.

License

This is released under an MIT license. See the LICENSE file in this repository for more information.

Consult the license terms of the providers of the WebDriver downloads prior to downloading / using the WebDrivers.