Click here to Skip to main content
15,867,453 members
Articles / Programming Languages / C#

Getting Started with WebDriver C# in 10 Minutes

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.21/5 (13 votes)
7 Aug 2015Ms-PL2 min read 37.9K   19   5
Short tutorial on how to start using one of the world's best web automation frameworks - WebDriver. Exact steps to follow through code in C# and images.

Introduction

WebDriver is a tool for automating testing web applications, and, in particular, to verify that they work as expected. It aims to provide a friendly API that’s easy to explore and understand, which will help make your tests easier to read and maintain. It’s not tied to any particular test framework so that it can be used equally well with MSTest, NUnit, TestNG, JUnit and so on. This “Getting Started” guide introduces you to WebDriver’s C# API and helps get you started becoming familiar with it.

Create Your First WebDriver Test Project

  1. Create New Test Project in Visual Studio.

  2. Install NuGet package manager and navigate to it.

  3. Search for Selenium and install the first item in the result list.

Code Examples In WebDriver

Create an instance of a driver.

C#
IWebDriver driverOne = new FirefoxDriver();
IWebDriver driverTwo = new InternetExlorerDriver("C:\\PathToMyIeDriverBinaries\");

Only the FirefoxDriver can be created without parameters. For all other drivers, you need to point the location where the particular driver is downloaded.

?dditional steps are required to use Chrome Driver, Opera Driver, Android Driver and iPhone Driver.

Navigate to specific URL.

C#
driverOne.Navigate().GoToUrl("<a href="http://automatetheplanet.com/" rel="noreferrer" style="display: inline !important; removed: help;">http://automatetheplanet.com/</a>");

Locating Elements with WebDriver

By ID

C#
IWebElement element = driverOne.FindElement(By.Id("myUniqueId"));

By Class (Find more than one element on the page)

C#
IList<IWebElement> elements = driverOne.FindElements(By.ClassName("green"));

By Tag Name

C#
IWebElement frame = driverOne.FindElement(By.TagName("iframe"));

By Name

C#
IWebElement cheese = driverOne.FindElement(By.Name("goran"));

By Link Text

C#
IWebElement link = driverOne.FindElement(By.LinkText("best features"));

By XPath

C#
IList<IWebElement> inputs = driverOne.FindElements(By.XPath("//input"));

By CSS Selector

C#
IWebElement css = driverOne.FindElement(By.CssSelector("#green span.dairy.baged"));

Chaining Locators

Use a Chain of Locators to find a particular element.

C#
IWebElement hardToFind = this.driverOne.FindElement
(By.ClassName("firstElementTable")).FindElement(By.Id("secondElement"));

IWebElement Methods

IWebElement Properties

HTML Element Actions in WebDriver

Type Text into a field using Selenium WebDriver SendKeys() function.

C#
IWebElement element = driverOne.FindElement(By.Name("search"));
element.SendKeys("Automate The Planet!");

Select Drop Down Value. First, you need to add NuGet Package to your project- Selenium.Support.

C#
SelectElement selectElement = new SelectElement(driver.FindElement(By.XPath("/html/body/select")));
selectElement.SelectByText("Planet");

So Far in the 'Pragmatic Automation with WebDriver' Series

This article was originally posted at http://automatetheplanet.com/getting-started-webdriver

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL)


Written By
CEO Automate The Planet
Bulgaria Bulgaria
CTO and Co-founder of Automate The Planet Ltd, inventor of BELLATRIX Test Automation Framework, author of "Design Patterns for High-Quality Automated Tests: High-Quality Test Attributes and Best Practices" in C# and Java. Nowadays, he leads a team of passionate engineers helping companies succeed with their test automation. Additionally, he consults companies and leads automated testing trainings, writes books, and gives conference talks. You can find him on LinkedIn every day.

Comments and Discussions

 
QuestionGood one to start with !!! Pin
KK Kod7-Aug-15 4:06
KK Kod7-Aug-15 4:06 
BugFormatting Pin
Florian Rappl6-Aug-15 23:56
professionalFlorian Rappl6-Aug-15 23:56 
GeneralRe: Formatting Pin
Anton Angelov7-Aug-15 2:10
Anton Angelov7-Aug-15 2:10 
GeneralRe: Formatting Pin
Florian Rappl7-Aug-15 3:33
professionalFlorian Rappl7-Aug-15 3:33 
GeneralRe: Formatting Pin
Anton Angelov7-Aug-15 3:34
Anton Angelov7-Aug-15 3:34 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.