The world is witnessing exponential growth and rapid transformation of web applications. In the next few years, billions of devices will have access to the Internet and will use numerous web applications. Web applications have now greatly evolved, providing more intelligent functionalities and features and must comply with various aspects such as security, stability, usability, etc.
To determine stability, automated tests are performed as part of web application testing. . Automated testing is a method that helps developers run numerous tests of an application automatically without intervening in the process.
When it comes to automation, there are various tools for testing. The easiest and most popular tool is Selenium for PHP. The ease of Selenium combined with the simplicity of PHP makes a great combination for testers around the world.
Getting Started with Selenium Testing using PHP
Selenium is one of the testing tools popular ones that support various scripts like PHP, Java, Python, Perl, C# and Ruby. It is compatible with many browsers like Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc., and various operating systems like Windows, Linux, macOS, Solaris, etc. It supports multiple frameworks, keeping a wide range of developers and testers in its shadow. Also, Selenium contains simple commands and has a simple implementation.
Installation Configuration Prerequisites
- Xampp (an abbreviation for cross-platform, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl). It is an open source tool that helps to build a local server on your computer. Xampp is an ideal framework for testing the functionality of applications based on various technologies, such as PHP, Perl, Apache, and MySQL.
- Any IDE to write the code. In this Selenium PHP tutorial, let’s use the most popular IDE, VS code.
- Java must be installed on your system. Also, set all the necessary environment variables.
Step 1: Installing Xampp
You can download Xampp from its official website. Please note that there are multiple options; Please download Xampp according to the operating system you are on.
After installing Xampp, launch the application and you will see a window like the one shown above. Start the Apache and MySQL servers from here by clicking Start corresponding to each of them.
Step 2: Download Selenium PHP Binding and extract it to htdocs folder
<p After starting the Xampp server, you need to download the Selenium PHP bindings. Selenium PHP bindings serve as the link between the browser and test scripts written with the help of Selenium.
Step 3: Install any IDE
You have set up the environment; you can now write code for testing automation. Download VS Code, which is the most popular IDE developed by Microsoft.
Step 4: Download and Install a Browser Driver
The idea behind installing a browser driver is automate the commands you code Serves as a link between the test script and the browser. For different browsers, you need to install a different browser driver. By default, Selenium is compatible with Mozilla Firefox.
To install a web driver in Selenium, download a driver according to the browser you want to use.
Step 5: Download the Selenium Server
Now download the most important ingredient in the entire test automation process, Selenium Standalone Server. Note that the Selenium server package includes a jar file, for which Java must already be installed on your system.
Step 6: Create a test
Now, let’s create our first try using php. Open a PHP file in VS Code and enter the following script. We are creating a test that will perform a simple Google search.
connect(“firefox”); $webdriver->get(“http://google.com”);$element = $webdriver->findElementBy(LocatorStrategy::name, “q”);if ($element) { $element->sendKeys(array( “BrowserStack” ) ); $element->submit();}$webdriver->close();?>
Step 7: Run the code starting the Selenium server
To start the Selenium server, navigate to to the folder where you downloaded the selenium server package and open a command prompt in that folder and type the following command.
java -jar selenium-server-standalone-.jar -role hub
Replace with the actual version of the Selenium Server package you downloaded.
Now, open your localhost to see what your test is doing. To open your PHP file, make sure you save the file in the htdocs folder, and then open localhost/file.php in your browser. A Google search will be running.
Best practices using Selenium WebDriver and PHP
Although test automation determines the reliability and stability of the software, it is important that the test scripts themselves have stability. However, there is no fixed method for creating such reliable tests; Depends on the situation; Here are some practices to adopt when using Selenium in PHP.
- Selector order: Choosing the correct selector order speeds up your testing, as it determines which web locator to use. it should have the maximum effect on your test. The ideal order is ID > Name > CSSSelector > XPath.
- Page Object Model: Here each web page is treated as an object class It makes code maintenance easier. So when you make changes to the web page, the changes you make to the test code will be even smaller.
- Directory Structure: There is no required method when structuring your files. . However, it is recommended to separate your test implementation from your framework when structuring your folders.
- Avoid code duplication: If you avoid code duplication, you will ultimately increase code maintainability and decrease code size, further increasing test performance.
- Configuration Reporting: The idea behind implementing reporting configuration is to parse its test, at which point it fails, test status, and other parameters.
PHP is an efficient server-side programming language that helps create dynamic and interactive web pages. Besides this, it is widely used in automation testing. It also supports the Selenium framework, which together is a great combination for testing automation.
In addition, using the Selenium framework offers many advantages, one of them being an open source tool. Selenium is backed by a strong community, making it more efficient with each regular update.
In this Selenium PHP example, you will have understood how to run PHP Selenium tests in different browsers. However, if you want to extend your automation tests, you should use Selenium Grid. Selenium Grid helps to perform automation tests on multiple operating systems, browsers, and devices simultaneously.
BrowserStack allows you to run Selenium tests smoothly using different languages like Java Script, Java, PHP, Python, C#, Ruby, etc.
Try Selenium tests for free
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