What is Watir (Web Application Testing in Ruby)

Watir is a toolkit used to automate browser-based tests during web application development.

Is an open-source (BSD) family of Ruby libraries for automating web browsers

“Watir drives browsers the same way people do. Watir also checks results, such as whether expected text appears on the page.”

This automated test tool uses the Ruby (programming language) scripting language

• Internet Explorer,
• Mozilla Firefox,
• Google Chrome and
• Safari (web browser)

Available as a RubyGems gem

Watir operates differently than HTTP based test tools, which operate by simulating a browser. Instead Watir directly drives the browser through the Object Linking and Embedding protocol, which is implemented over the Component Object Model (COM) architecture

How to get Child Objects?

We can use description object to get all the objects on the page that matches that specific description. Suppose we have to check all the checkboxes present on a web page. So we will first create an object description for a checkboxe and then get all the checkboxes from the page

Dim obj_ChkDesc

Set obj_ChkDesc=Description.Create

obj_ChkDesc(“html tag”).value = “INPUT”

obj_ChkDesc(“type”).value = “checkbox”

Dim allCheckboxes, singleCheckBox

Set  allCheckboxes = Browse(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).ChildObjects(obj_ChkDesc)

For each singleCheckBox in allCheckboxes

      singleCheckBox.Set “ON”

Next

The above code will check all the check boxes present on the page. To get all the child objects we need to specify an object description i.e. we can’t use the string arguments that will be discussed later in the 2nd way of using the programming description.

Possible Operation on Description Object

Consider the below code for all the solutions

Dim obj_ChkDesc

Set obj_ChkDesc=Description.Create

obj_ChkDesc(“html tag”).value = “INPUT”

obj_ChkDesc(“type”).value = “checkbox”

Q: How to get the no. of description defined in a collection

A: obj_ChkDesc.Count ‘Will return 2 in our case

Q: How to remove a description from the collection

A: obj_ChkDesc.remove “html tag” ‘would delete the html tag property from the collection

Q: How do I check if property exists or not in the collection?

A: The answer is that it’s not possible. Because whenever we try to access a property which is not defined its automatically added to the collection. The only    way to determine is to check its value that is use a if statement “if obj_ChkDesc(“html tag”).value = empty then”.

Q: How to browse through all the properties of a properties collection?

A: Two ways

      1^st:

                  For each desc in obj_ChkDesc

                              Name=desc.Name

                              Value=desc.Value

                              RE = desc.regularexpression

                  Next

      2^nd:

                  For i=0 to obj_ChkDesc.count - 1

                              Name= obj_ChkDesc(i).Name

                              Value= obj_ChkDesc(i).Value

                              RE = obj_ChkDesc(i).regularexpression

                  Next

2.      By giving the description in form of the string arguments.

You can describe an object directly in a statement by specifying property:=value pairs describing the object instead of specifying an object’s

name. The general syntax is:

TestObject("PropertyName1:=PropertyValue1", "..." , "PropertyNameX:=PropertyValueX")

TestObject—the test object class could be WebEdit, WebRadioGroup etc….

PropertyName:=PropertyValue—the test object property and its value. Each property:=value pair should be separated by commas and quotation

marks. Note that you can enter a variable name as the property value if you want to find an object based on property values you retrieve during a run session.

Consider the HTML Code given below:

Now to refer to the textbox the statement would be as given below

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebEdit(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html tag:=INPUT”).set “Test”

And to refer to the radio button the statement would be as given below

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebRadioGroup(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html tag:=INPUT”).set “Test”

If we refer to them as a web element then we will have to distinguish between the 2 using the index property

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebElement(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html tag:=INPUT”,”Index:=0”).set “Test” ‘ Refers to the textbox

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebElement(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html tag:=INPUT”,”Index:=1”).set “Test” ‘ Refers to the radio button

Hierarchy of test description

When using programmatic descriptions from a specific point within a test object hierarchy, you must continue to use programmatic descriptions

From that point onward within the same statement. If you specify a test object by its object repository name after other objects in the hierarchy have

Been described using programmatic descriptions, Quick Test cannot identify the object.

For example, you can use Browser(Desc1).Page(Desc1).Link(desc3), since it uses programmatic descriptions throughout the entire test object hierarchy.

You can also use Browser("Index").Page(Desc1).Link(desc3), since it uses programmatic descriptions from a certain point in the description (starting

from the Page object description).

However, you cannot use Browser(Desc1).Page(Desc1).Link("Example1"), since it uses programmatic descriptions for the Browser and Page objects but

then attempts to use an object repository name for the Link test object (QuickTest tries to locate the Link object based on its name, but cannot

locate it in the repository because the parent objects were specified using programmatic descriptions).

How to use Descriptive programming?

There are two ways in which descriptive programming can be used

1.      By creating properties collection object for the description.

2.      By giving the description in form of the string arguments.

1.      By creating properties collection object for the description.

To use this method you need first to create an empty description

Dim obj_Desc ‘Not necessary to declare

Set obj_Desc = Description.Create

Now we have a blank description in “obj_Desc”. Each description has 3 properties “Name”, “Value” and “Regular Expression”.

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

When you use a property name for the first time the property is added to the collection and when you use it again the property is modified. By default each property that is defined is a regular expression. Suppose if we have the following description

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt.*”

This would mean an object with html tag as INPUT and name starting with txt. Now actually that “.*” was considered as regular expression. So, if you want the property “name” not to be recognized as a regular expression then you need to set the “regularexpression” property as FALSE

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt.*”

obj_Desc(“name”).regularexpression= “txt.*”

This is how of we create a description. Now below is the way we can use it

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebEdit(obj_Desc).set “Test”

When we say .WebEdit(obj_Desc) we define one more property for our description that was not earlier defined that is it’s a text box (because QTPs WebEdit boxes map to text boxes in a web page).

If we know that we have more than 1 element with same description on the page then we must define “index” property for the that description

Consider the HTML code given below

Now the html code has two objects with same description. So distinguish between these 2 objects we will use the “index” property. Here is the description for both the object

For 1^st textbox:

      obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”

obj_Desc(“index”).value= “0”

For 2^nd textbox:

      obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”

obj_Desc(“index”).value= “1”

Consider the HTML Code given below:

We can use the same description for both the objects and still distinguish between both of them

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”

When I want to refer to the textbox then I will use the inside a WebEdit object and to refer to the radio button I will use the description object with the WebRadioGroup object.

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebEdit(obj_Desc).set “Test” ‘Refers to the text box

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebRadioGroup(obj_Desc).set “Test” ‘Refers to the radio button

But if we use WebElement object for the description then we must define the “index” property because for a webelement the current description would return two objects.