Selenium Automation set up

with TestNG and Eclipse- A

Beginners Guide
Authors: Eevuri Sri Harsha, Ranjani Sivagnanam
Sri Harsha is working as an Associate Software Engineer (QA) for IBM Policy Atlas
team under ECM. Reach out to her at [email protected]
Ranjani, is working as a Staff Software Engineer (QA) for IBM Policy Atlas team
under ECM. Reach out to her at [email protected]

Abstract: This article is a guide for the beginners when they use Selenium, Testing
and Eclipse IDE for automation testing

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

1. Introduction
Selenium IDE/Web driver has becoming a very popular testing tool as it is an open source. This is a GUI
Automation tool. This is a beginners guide to install and use Selenium with Testing and Eclipse IDE. This
gives a step by step installation guide to Kick-start an Automation journey.
This document will describe one of the ways of setting up the environment automating Web
Applications. Described here will be a sample test script, object repository build up using XPath or CSS,
reporting configuration for the test run.

1.1 Install Firefox in Windows:

1. Visit the Firefox download page in any browser (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer). The page will
automatically recommend the best version(s) of Firefox for you.
2. Firefox Download Page - Windows-> Download 32-bit-Firefox Setup 3.6.0.exe
3. Click on the green download link to download the Firefox installer. Start the process by clicking
Run.
4. Install Firefox 3.6 by a double click on Firefox icon -> click on next buttons, install button, Launch
Firefox by click on finish button.
5. See the below screens to follow up.
Figure 1

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 2

1.2 Install DOM Inspector:

1. Open Firefox 3.6 and go to Tools -> Add ons.
2. In Search tab give DOM Inspector: click on install the latest version.
3. Go to Tools-> Add ons -> Search -> give Inspect this as search term ad click on install the latest
version.
4. See the below screens to follow up.
Figure 3

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 4

1.3 Install JDK 1.7:

1. Download Windows JDK 1.7 from
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
2. Install JDK 1.7

2. Selenium Introduction :
The Selenium-IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is the tool you use to develop your Selenium
test cases. Its an easy-to-use Firefox plug-in and is generally the most efficient way to develop test
cases. It also contains a context menu that allows you to first select a UI element from the browsers
currently displayed page and then select from a list of Selenium commands with parameters pre-defined
according to the context of the selected UI element. This is not only a time-saver, but also an excellent
way of learning Selenium script syntax.

2.1 Install Selenium IDE:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Open Firefox 3.6 and goto Tools -> ADD ONS.

In Search tab give Selenium IDE : click on install the latest version.
After install Selenium IDE -> Go to Tools-> Add Ons-> Extensions sub tab -> Selenium IDE .
Click on options in Selenium IDE.
Identify below tabs to work on Different platform Environments and to see default settings

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 5

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 6

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

2.2 Selenium Web Driver:

The biggest change in Selenium recently has been the inclusion of the Web Driver API. Driving a browser
natively as a user would either locally or on a remote machine using the Selenium Server it marks a leap
forward in terms of browser automation
Selenium 1.0 + Web Driver = Selenium 2.0
1. Web Driver is designed in a simpler and more concise programming interface along with
addressing some limitations in the Selenium-RC API.
2. It drives the browser much more effectively and over comes the limitations of Selenium 1.x
which affected our functional test coverage, like the file upload or download, pop-ups and
dialogs barrier.
3. To Support Web Driver we need to keep selenium standard 2.33 jar file in Project class path.
Install selenium-server-standalone-2.33.0.jar file to support Selenium Remote Web driver:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Download selenium-server-standalone-2.33.0.jar from web.

We need to keep selenium-server-standalone-2.33.0.jar in created Selenium Project Class path.
This jar file will support handling Remote browsers and web drivers, different browsers.
See the below screen for RC components.

Figure 7

2.3 Install DOM Inspector to inspect web elements using Xpath:

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

The web contains static and dynamic objects/elements. For static elements Ids are same at any time.
Ex: Button , Text box , Text Area ids .Using Inspect this element we can identify element id xpath.
1. While using Selenium IDE, sometimes the dynamic elements cannot be identified. These have to
be identified at run time.
2. Static elements are like button, text box, text area. For static elements Ids are same at any time.
3. But for Dynamic elements Ids will change at execution time.
4. DOM Inspector is useful to identify dynamic elements with common id at any time.
5. Here Xpath is creating id to identify dynamic element.
6. Example : Identify one checkbox id among multiple check boxes ids.
7. Check box id will change dynamically. That time Xpath using Dom inspector is useful to identify
the Id.

To explain how we use XPATH or CSS, here is an example:

On the home page of Google India search page, we see list of languages which can be used to convert
Google page into particular language.
The example is covering Google English to Google Hindi.
1. Open Firefox.
2. Open www.google.co.in page.
3. Open DOM Inspector from Tools-> Web developer -> DOM inspector -> click on cursor icon of
Dom inspector and click on any web element in Firefox to get id path.
4. See below screen for XPATH. Here its clicking on Hindi sub link and getting xpath.
Figure 8

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

1.
2.
3.
4.

XPATH generated is : //a[text()='Hindi']

Open Selenium IDE and give command as highlight or Click
Target is generated XPATH: //a[text()='Hindi']
Click on Find button in selenium IDE.

Results its highlights and click the "Hindi" Language.

See below screen.
Figure 9

2.3.1 Few points to note about XPATH:

An XPATH axis is a path through the node tree making use of particular relationship between nodes. We
use the "child::*" axis and the "attribute::*" axis all the time but mostly their short form: "*" and "@*".
The other axes are used far less often.
Follow below website to get good command on XPATH creation.
http://www.xmlplease.com/axis

CSS
Another way of locating the objects is by using CSS Selectors instead of XPATH:
Open the Selenium IDE > Options > Options> Locator Builders > Make sure CSS is present in the list

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 10

For this we can use DOM Inspector to get the elements, its attributes and its hierarchy
To locate a text field >
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Open the www.google.co.in

Open the Selenium IDE
Record the Clicking on the Hindi link
Stop recording
Select the Target as css

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 11

Please refer the site http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_selectors.asp to learn about CSS

selectors

3.Install eclipse.exe:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Download Eclipse Standard 4.3.1 from web.

Install Eclipse by double click on eclipse.exe.
Give project location as Workspace.
See the screens to install eclipse

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 12

3.1 Install TestNG

1. Open the eclipse.exe
2. Goto Help > Install New Software

3. Give the url http://beust.com/eclipse in the Work with field

4. Click on Add
Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

5. TestNG will be listed

6. Check the checkbox against TestNG
7. Click Next
Figure 13

8. Click Next until the License Agreement screen appears

9. Click I agree option
10. Installing Software pop up comes up
Figure 14

11. Once the installation is complete, open File> New> Other(or Ctrl + N) > Testing Class must be
listed in the window

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 16

3.2 Creating a Java project:

1. Goto to Workbench
2. Click on File > New > Java Project
Figure 17

3. Choose your JRE version, latest being JavaSE 1.7

4. Click on Finish

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 18

5. Add the Selenium jar to the library ( File> Properties > Goto Libraries > Add External JARs .. >
Select the selenium-server-standalone-2.25.0.jar or the latest selenium jar
Figure 19

It should be added

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Figure 20

)
6. Create a new Class MyFirstAutomationScript.java
Figure 21

7. Import Testing packages

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Click on MyFirstAutomationScript.java
Click New
Click TestNG class
Click @BeforeTest
Finish

Figure 22

8. Add the @BeforeTest method

9. Add the @AfterTest method
10. Add the test you have to do in the @Test annotation
import
import
import
import
import
import
import
import

org.testng.annotations.Test;
org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
org.testng.annotations.AfterTest;
org.openqa.selenium.By;
org.seleniumhq.*;
com.thoughtworks.selenium.Selenium;
com.beust.testng.*;
static org.testng.Assert.*;

public class MyFirstAutomationScript{

@Test
public void firstTest() {
//Write the selenium code to test a particular functionality
}
@BeforeTest
public void beforeTest() {

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

//Write the setup steps like starting the Selenium server, bringing
the application url up
}
@AfterTest
public void afterTest() {
//Write the cleanup steps like logging out of the application,
stopping the Selenium server
}
}

11. Click on the java class and Select Run as > TestNG Test
12. As a beginner in Automation, the first steps are to give proper logging setup. In TESTNG, we
have Reporter class which has logging functions which can be used.
Reporter.log("PASS : <font color=\"green\"><b>"+ "Test case has
passed"+"</b></font><br/>");

The below given code is an example of how java classes and functions can be linked to xml files
Java classes and Functions:
We should write java functions to connect xml file and run the web application.
Write java class for each web component of application .Each java class is one component.
Template consists of set of functions as well as abstract methods.
Write java functions for each and every element (buttons, textbox) action items functions of particular
component.
Sample java code:
//import packages
//import Templates;

public class Template1 extends BaseTemplate

{
public static Template t1;
public static int i=0;

public static void function1 (ArrayList<StepData> stepDatas) throws Exception

{
Click ("elementid");
System.out.println ("Google");
}
}

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide

Each Java function should be called inside xml file, values passed inside xml file will be passed to java
function and execution will be done according to xml file steps.
XML file:
1. XML stands for EXtensible Markup Language
2. XML is a markup language much like HTML.
3. Here every test script is written in xml file format with steps having element value and ID of the
element.
4. Each XML file generation is used to run each test script.
Example:
<TestStep action="function name" type="template path">
<StepDatas>
<StepData value="elementid"></StepData>
<StepData value="elementvalue"></StepData>
</StepDatas>
</TestStep>

5.

Each Test step is one single action in web application. Web page element id, values will be pass
as single individual steps .XML test script generation is main part in automation web application.

Conclusion:
This article provides the outline for setting up all the tools required to start automation using Selenium
with Java Eclipse IDE. Additional to this, knowledge of Core JAVA is required to test the functionalities.
This document in brief overview these points:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Setup all the required software

Get to know how to write basic classes and methods in Core JAVA
Using DOM Inspector, recognize the objects in web page
Run the tests as Testing Test
Reporting can be done by using the TestNG Reporter class.

Selenium with TESTNG and eclipse IDE- Automation Beginners guide