brainbaking/content/post/custom-webdriver-page-factories.md

title	bigimg	date	subtitle	tags
Custom Webdriver Page Factories	/img/Custom Webdriver Page Factories.jpg	2014-09-22	Wrapping WebElements to reduce boilerplate clutter	unit testing java C# webdriver scenario testing

The problem: Webdriver elements returned by driver.FindElement() are too generic. There're the Text, SendKeys() and Click() methods/properties (depending your on C#/Java implementation). The solution is to simply wrap all elements inside custom HTML objects which contain specific methods like ShouldContainValue or Type (okay, that's a one-to-one mapping with SendKeys(), but it's a lot less technical!). Instead of

    [FindsBy(How = How.CssSelector, Using = ".ux-desktop-taskbar-startbutton")]
    private IWebElement startButton;

    [FindsBy(How = How.CssSelector, Using = ".other")]
    private IWebElement whatever;

You'd find code like

    [FindsBy(How = How.CssSelector, Using = ".ux-desktop-taskbar-startbutton")]
    private HTMLSubmitButton startButton;

    [FindsBy(How = How.CssSelector, Using = ".other")]
    private HTMLInputBox whatever;

In java, this is not that difficult. Normally all fields annotated with FindsBy are filled in via reflection with PageFactory.InitElements(). (warning: this creates proxies and does not yet actually do the lookup in the DOM tree. This is a good thing, as filling the fields usually happens inside the constructor of a page object.). initElements returns the filled page, you can do a few things from there:

• postprocess the page and decorate your fields
• create your own page factory and create your own fields, wrapped around the webdriver proxies

In C#, you're in trouble - the class is sealed, and the proxy classes are internal. Creating your own factory is possible, but produces fuzzy code:

internal class PageFactory
{
    private PageFactory()
    {
    }

    private static By FindsByAttributeToBy(FindsByAttribute attribute)
    {
        return (By) typeof (FindsByAttribute).GetProperty("Finder", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).GetValue(attribute);
    }

    public static void InitElements(IWebDriver driver, object page)
    {
        foreach (FieldInfo field in FindAllFieldsAndProperties(page.GetType()))
        {
            Attribute[] findsByAttribs = Attribute.GetCustomAttributes(field, typeof (FindsByAttribute), true);
            if (findsByAttribs.Length > 0)
            {
                var findsByAttribute = (findsByAttribs[0] as FindsByAttribute);
                if (field.FieldType == typeof (IWebElement))
                {
                    field.SetValue(page, FindElement(driver, FindsByAttributeToBy(findsByAttribute)));
                }
                else if (typeof (IEnumerable).IsAssignableFrom(field.FieldType))
                {
                    field.SetValue(page, FindElements(driver, FindsByAttributeToBy(findsByAttribute)));
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private static IWebElement FindElement(IWebDriver driver, By by)
    {
    	// warning: create WebProxyElement instead of directly doing a lookup
        return driver.FindElement(by);
    }

    private static IReadOnlyCollection<IWebElement> FindElements(IWebDriver driver, By by)
    {
    	// warning: create WebListProxyElement instead of directly doing a lookup
        return driver.FindElements(by);
    }

    private static IEnumerable<FieldInfo> FindAllFieldsAndProperties(Type type)
    {
        var list = new List<FieldInfo>();
        list.AddRange(type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public));
        for (; type != (Type) null; type = type.BaseType)
        {
            list.AddRange(type.GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic));
        }
        return list;
    }
}

If you have a keen eye, you notice a few things:

• caching of the attribute wouldn't work anymore. The default C# WebDriver implementation is fuzzy and I didn't want to copypaste code I won't use.
• proxying won't work anymore, you'd have to use reflection to instantiate internal classes.
• reflection has been used to fetch the By instance of the FindsByAttribute. Yay.

The above solution is too complex to solve a simple thing. Instead of a custom page factory, in C# we now use extension methods on IWebElement. Another possibility would to create wrapper objects on-the-fly but you'd still have to map the "raw" web elements on page objects.