Search icon CANCEL
Subscription
0
Cart icon
Your Cart (0 item)
Close icon
You have no products in your basket yet
Save more on your purchases! discount-offer-chevron-icon
Savings automatically calculated. No voucher code required.
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Newsletter Hub
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
timer SALE ENDS IN
0 Days
:
00 Hours
:
00 Minutes
:
00 Seconds
Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices
Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices

Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices: Build a powerful, stable, and automated test suite using Selenium WebDriver

eBook
€8.99 €21.99
Paperback
€26.99
Subscription
Free Trial
Renews at €18.99p/m

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

Free for first 7 days. $19.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!
Product feature icon Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!
Product feature icon 50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Product feature icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Product feature icon Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.
Subscribe now
View plans & pricing
Table of content icon View table of contents Preview book icon Preview Book

Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices

Chapter 2. The Spaghetti Pattern

 

"Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live."

 
 --Martin Golding

Writing and maintaining any form of software is like fighting entropy; given enough time and changes, any code base will gradually decline into disorder. A test suite is a closed system; if you do not provide energy in constant upkeep and planning, the suite will deteriorate and will fail constantly. Every new feature and line of code added to our website makes our test suite obsolete. The only way to fight back these natural forces is to constantly upgrade and improve existing tests.

In this chapter, we will start to grow our test suite organically and take a look at an anti-pattern called the Spaghetti pattern. Along the way, we will pick up some more basic skills, such as using XPath and CSS selectors to locate the elements on a web page.

Note

The term anti-pattern was inspired by a great...

Introducing the Spaghetti pattern

In automated test projects, the Spaghetti pattern development is characterized by lack of perceived architecture and design. This style of test development evokes an image of bowl of spaghetti, where each strand of spaghetti can represent a single test or multiple tests intertwined so tightly together that it becomes difficult to tell one apart from another. Furthermore, it is close to impossible to understand anything at a glance without spending time fishing out and untangling each individual strand of spaghetti from the bowl.

Tests in this pattern not only depend on the execution order of all the tests, but also tend to over-share internal private components with each other. The run order is important because each test is not self sufficient and independent, and thus needs previously run tests to set up the test environment. For example, a login test requires the registration test to successfully register a new user, instead of having an existing user...

Testing the product review functionality

Our website, like many other modern websites, allows users to leave positive and negative feedback on a given product. Higher-rated comments on any given product can provide a much needed boost in sales. As with any situation involving monetary incentives, someone will try to game the system and make money in the process. So, aside from the ability to leave a comment, our website has a rudimentary fraud prevention system. It will prevent any suspiciously duplicate comments/ratings from being added to any product.

It is now our task to test both of these features. So, let's explicitly state the target goals of the tests we will now implement:

  • As a website user, I should be able to leave a product review for any product, and the resulting review should be immediately visible on the product's page
  • As a fraudulent user, I should be prevented from posting duplicate product reviews on our website

Starting a product review test

Let's start off...

Reasons for failures

We finished our two tests and we should now examine just how fragile they are. Even though the design of our tests made sense at the time of writing them, they will fail at the slightest provocation. Let's imagine a couple of real-life situations.

The sales team decided that having to change the amount of exclamation marks in the name of the product. These little tweaks happen all the time. We won't change the actual website, but we will change our test to expect a different amount of exclamation marks in the assertion. This will provide a sufficient discrepancy between the test and reality to make the test fail.

Note

You can download the full test code from http://awful-valentine.com/code/chapter-2.

Let's change the assertion in test_add_new_review to look like this:

Reasons for failures

Running the tests will now give the following output:

Reasons for failures

Let's do a postmortem of our tests and list several bad mistakes:

  • Test on test dependence: This is the most obvious test. If the first...

The Chain Linked pattern

The Chain Linked pattern is an improvement on the Spaghetti pattern. Unlike the bowl of spaghetti, an outstretched length of chain can characterize this pattern. Each link in the chain is an individual test and is an entity on its own. Even though each test is self contained and does not share too much with its neighbors, it still relies on a rigid order of execution. Most tests in this pattern rely on previous tests to set up the environment to be just right. This pattern is a huge improvement on the Spaghetti pattern in its long-term maintainability; however, since the whole test suite needs to be executed every time, it is neither efficient nor easy to use. In conclusion, the Chain Linked pattern might not be the best way to approach writing a test suite. However, it is an overall improvement over the Spaghetti pattern, since it segregates individual tests into more or less self-contained units.

The Big Ball of Mud pattern

Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder first popularized the Big Ball of Mud in their self-titled paper. Unlike the Spaghetti pattern, where the test suite can be separated into individual strands, Big Ball of Mud does not have any formal structures that will allow a distinction between any individual components. Test data and results are promiscuously shared amongst most distant and unrelated components until everything is global and mutable without warning. Unintentional test failures occur when a component is changed for a new test without the realization that hundreds of other tests depend on it. To exacerbate the problem, there is no easy way to find all of the interdependencies since everything is merged together like a piece of wet clay.

Adoption of this pattern is usually unintentional and stems from being developed over long periods of time with different individuals working on different pieces without any overall architectural plan. The initial success of just...

Introducing the Spaghetti pattern


In automated test projects, the Spaghetti pattern development is characterized by lack of perceived architecture and design. This style of test development evokes an image of bowl of spaghetti, where each strand of spaghetti can represent a single test or multiple tests intertwined so tightly together that it becomes difficult to tell one apart from another. Furthermore, it is close to impossible to understand anything at a glance without spending time fishing out and untangling each individual strand of spaghetti from the bowl.

Tests in this pattern not only depend on the execution order of all the tests, but also tend to over-share internal private components with each other. The run order is important because each test is not self sufficient and independent, and thus needs previously run tests to set up the test environment. For example, a login test requires the registration test to successfully register a new user, instead of having an existing user...

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Description

Selenium WebDriver is a global leader in automated web testing. It empowers users to perform complex testing scenarios with its simple and powerful interface. This guide will provide you with all the skills you need to successfully create a functional Selenium test suite. Starting from the very beginning of the Selenium IDE, this book will show you how to transition into a real programing language such as Ruby or Java. You will quickly learn how to improve your code quality with refactoring and the skills needed to plan for the future development of your website to future-proof your test suite. With ample test examples running against a life-like e-commerce store and detailed step-by-step code review and explanations, you will be ready to test any challenge web developers might throw your way. This book is intended for anyone who wants to create a test suite that is easy to maintain by expanding your knowledge until you feel truly confident and comfortable with Selenium.

What you will learn

  • Control Selenium WebDriver within any major programing language such as Java, Ruby, Python, and .NET
  • Learn how to implement a simple test script or a complex Page Objects framework
  • Set up each test to automatically deal with AJAX and jQuery
  • Remove test instabilities by blocking thirdparty services
  • Deal with data uncertainties by using fixtures, JSON APIs, and API stubbing
  • Improve your test suite continuously by refactoring code and using the DRY principle
  • Stabilize your tests by using patterns such as the Action Wrapper and Black Hole Proxy patterns

Product Details

Country selected
Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Sep 23, 2014
Length: 270 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783982707
Vendor :
Selenium
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

What do you get with a Packt Subscription?

Free for first 7 days. $19.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!
Product feature icon Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!
Product feature icon 50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Product feature icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Product feature icon Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.
Subscribe now
View plans & pricing

Product Details

Publication date : Sep 23, 2014
Length: 270 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783982707
Vendor :
Selenium
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

Packt Subscriptions

See our plans and pricing
Modal Close icon
€18.99 billed monthly
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Simple pricing, no contract
€189.99 billed annually
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Choose a DRM-free eBook or Video every month to keep
Feature tick icon PLUS own as many other DRM-free eBooks or Videos as you like for just €5 each
Feature tick icon Exclusive print discounts
€264.99 billed in 18 months
Feature tick icon Unlimited access to Packt's library of 7,000+ practical books and videos
Feature tick icon Constantly refreshed with 50+ new titles a month
Feature tick icon Exclusive Early access to books as they're written
Feature tick icon Solve problems while you work with advanced search and reference features
Feature tick icon Offline reading on the mobile app
Feature tick icon Choose a DRM-free eBook or Video every month to keep
Feature tick icon PLUS own as many other DRM-free eBooks or Videos as you like for just €5 each
Feature tick icon Exclusive print discounts

Frequently bought together


Stars icon
Total 63.98
Selenium Design Patterns and Best Practices
€26.99
Learning Selenium Testing Tools - Third Edition
€36.99
Total 63.98 Stars icon
Banner background image

Table of Contents

10 Chapters
1. Writing the First Test Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. The Spaghetti Pattern Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Refactoring Tests Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Data-driven Testing Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Stabilizing the Tests Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Testing the Behavior Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. The Page Objects Pattern Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Growing the Test Suite Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. Getting Started with Selenium Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Top Reviews
Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.9
(11 Ratings)
5 star 36.4%
4 star 27.3%
3 star 27.3%
2 star 9.1%
1 star 0%
Filter icon Filter
Top Reviews

Filter reviews by




Josiah D. Weaver Nov 13, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
About time someone published something easy like this! I've been searching youtube and google for the last year trying to build a test environment! There's a lot of guys out there who are willing to help you out while building, but it's nice to finally be the guy people ask! This book really kicks things off from the ground up, teaching you a ton of the underlying concepts to get you building and testing pronto! Couldn't put it down my first week!
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Felipe da Silva Jan 11, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Good book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Dragan Nikolic Aug 13, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great book for learning Selenium and Ruby, and what is even more important for learning best test automation practices along the way.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Yev Nov 23, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
To begin with, in my opinion this book is for more experienced developers who are ready to take Selenium testing to the next level.I’ve been exposed to programming for about 2 years, starting with Ruby and currently learning some Java. While this book focuses primarily on using Ruby as the preferred language, have no doubt that Selenium can be used with Java as well.One of the strongest points of this technical book is that the author can convey advantages as well as disadvantages in a clear and concise manner. I have found that this helps greatly to see what is important and seeing possible downsides to a chosen path.Through showing us how software testing works from the first chapter, the author leads us through various examples and patterns in the current world of testing. It is up to date and includes relevant information now in 2014.In addition to explaining testing with the Selenium suite, the author also focuses on code reuse and refactoring, which will further help you grow as a programmer/developer. In Chapter 4, he also explains in depth test data and the various nuances associated with it.As the author states, you should be able to follow along the examples in this book with relative ease, but if you can’t the appendix will help you with setting up Ruby on your computer, how to use the command line interface, installing the Selenium Webdriver gem, as well as getting it to work in Firefox. His examples are honed by years of experience in software testing, so everything is explained as simply as possible for a beginner or an experienced developer. The screenshots will help you immensely to see what the author means and overall, will provide for an enjoyable experience reading this software testing book.I have found that this book not only taught me about Selenium testing, but also broadened my knowledge about Ruby programming as well as browser elements and using the Selenium plug in to the fullest in Firefox. There is much to be learned about the browser locator in Chapter 2 as well, which I highly recommend to review.In the test data chapter, the author clearly and concisely explains to the reader what kinds of data is available and the benefits/disadvantages of each. What I really liked is that the author touches on topics about BDD, Rspec, as well as Cucumber and CI tools.In conclusion, I would highly recommend this guide to anyone already testing or looking to start testing in the open source tool that is Selenium. In addition, you will learn many helpful tips for software development in general, like I have. I look forward to any future works by this author.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Janette Rounds Oct 12, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Very basic introduction. Not that good for experienced test automators. Nothing was wrong or invalid, I just was hoping for something more advanced that covered more modern trends in test automation.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Get free access to Packt library with over 7500+ books and video courses for 7 days!
Start Free Trial

FAQs

What is included in a Packt subscription? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

A subscription provides you with full access to view all Packt and licnesed content online, this includes exclusive access to Early Access titles. Depending on the tier chosen you can also earn credits and discounts to use for owning content

How can I cancel my subscription? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

To cancel your subscription with us simply go to the account page - found in the top right of the page or at https://subscription.packtpub.com/my-account/subscription - From here you will see the ‘cancel subscription’ button in the grey box with your subscription information in.

What are credits? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Credits can be earned from reading 40 section of any title within the payment cycle - a month starting from the day of subscription payment. You also earn a Credit every month if you subscribe to our annual or 18 month plans. Credits can be used to buy books DRM free, the same way that you would pay for a book. Your credits can be found in the subscription homepage - subscription.packtpub.com - clicking on ‘the my’ library dropdown and selecting ‘credits’.

What happens if an Early Access Course is cancelled? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Projects are rarely cancelled, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If an Early Access course is cancelled or excessively delayed, you can exchange your purchase for another course. For further details, please contact us here.

Where can I send feedback about an Early Access title? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

If you have any feedback about the product you're reading, or Early Access in general, then please fill out a contact form here and we'll make sure the feedback gets to the right team. 

Can I download the code files for Early Access titles? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

We try to ensure that all books in Early Access have code available to use, download, and fork on GitHub. This helps us be more agile in the development of the book, and helps keep the often changing code base of new versions and new technologies as up to date as possible. Unfortunately, however, there will be rare cases when it is not possible for us to have downloadable code samples available until publication.

When we publish the book, the code files will also be available to download from the Packt website.

How accurate is the publication date? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

The publication date is as accurate as we can be at any point in the project. Unfortunately, delays can happen. Often those delays are out of our control, such as changes to the technology code base or delays in the tech release. We do our best to give you an accurate estimate of the publication date at any given time, and as more chapters are delivered, the more accurate the delivery date will become.

How will I know when new chapters are ready? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

We'll let you know every time there has been an update to a course that you've bought in Early Access. You'll get an email to let you know there has been a new chapter, or a change to a previous chapter. The new chapters are automatically added to your account, so you can also check back there any time you're ready and download or read them online.

I am a Packt subscriber, do I get Early Access? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Yes, all Early Access content is fully available through your subscription. You will need to have a paid for or active trial subscription in order to access all titles.

How is Early Access delivered? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Early Access is currently only available as a PDF or through our online reader. As we make changes or add new chapters, the files in your Packt account will be updated so you can download them again or view them online immediately.

How do I buy Early Access content? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Early Access is a way of us getting our content to you quicker, but the method of buying the Early Access course is still the same. Just find the course you want to buy, go through the check-out steps, and you’ll get a confirmation email from us with information and a link to the relevant Early Access courses.

What is Early Access? Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Keeping up to date with the latest technology is difficult; new versions, new frameworks, new techniques. This feature gives you a head-start to our content, as it's being created. With Early Access you'll receive each chapter as it's written, and get regular updates throughout the product's development, as well as the final course as soon as it's ready.We created Early Access as a means of giving you the information you need, as soon as it's available. As we go through the process of developing a course, 99% of it can be ready but we can't publish until that last 1% falls in to place. Early Access helps to unlock the potential of our content early, to help you start your learning when you need it most. You not only get access to every chapter as it's delivered, edited, and updated, but you'll also get the finalized, DRM-free product to download in any format you want when it's published. As a member of Packt, you'll also be eligible for our exclusive offers, including a free course every day, and discounts on new and popular titles.