It is difficult and becomes more complex to maintain thousands of lines of code in a single class file. Different pages must be used for different tasks in order to preserve the project structure and the Selenium scripts’ effective performance. The Page object model saves the day by making it easier to distribute the code among many modules. Data-driven testing of page object models can be easily performed utilizing automation testing.
In this article, you will discover some of the fundamental ideas behind the Page Object Model in Selenium!
The Page Object Model: What Is It?
A test automation design pattern called Page Object Model is used to build an Object Repository for web user interface elements. Each web page within the application ought to have a page class that corresponds to it. In addition to locating the WebElements, this Page class might have page methods that manipulate the WebElements.
When the tests need to interact with the user interface of that page, they then use the methods of this page object class. The advantage here is that only the code inside the page object has to be modified; the tests don’t need to be altered if the page UI changes. Following that, all modifications supporting the new user interface are in one location. For this reason, test scripts and locators are kept apart in storage.
Why Use Page Object Model?
Following are the reasons that justify how to use a Page Object Model.
- Duplication of Code: If locators are not correctly maintained, increasing automated test coverage leads to an unmaintainable project structure. Usually, this results from redundant code or, more often, from using locators more than once.
- Reduced Time Consumption: The biggest issue with script maintenance is that, should one of the ten scripts that use the same page element change, all ten scripts would also need to be updated. It takes a lot of time and is prone to mistakes. Making a distinct class file that would locate, fill, or validate web elements is one of the greatest methods for script upkeep.
- Code maintenance: If a web element changes in the future, you should only need to make the change in one class file rather than ten separate scripts. POM helps do that and makes code more readable, manageable, and reusable. For instance, the web application’s main page has a navigation bar that links to other modules with various functionalities. Many test cases for automated testing would involve selecting tests by clicking on these menu buttons.
- Reformation of Automation Test Scripts: Let’s now imagine that the home page has a completely new UI with all of the menu buttons moved to new locations. As a result, the automation tests will not pass. Scripts that are unable to locate specific element-locators in order to execute an action may cause automated test cases to fail. The QA Engineer must now go over the entire code to update the locators as needed. It will take a lot of work to reform the element-locators in the duplicated code in order to simply adjust the locators, but this time could be better spent expanding test coverage.
Data-Driven Testing: What Is It?
Consider a situation where an application with numerous input fields needs to have a test automated. Normally, you would hardcode those parameters and run the test for one-off cases. Hardcoding, however, is not saleable. When you have to run through a large number of permutations of permissible input values for best-case, worst-case, positive, and negative test situations, hardcoding inputs will quickly become unmanageable, confusing, and awkward.
A spreadsheet can be used to store and record all test input data, allowing the test to be programmed to “read” the input values from it. That’s precisely the goal of data-driven testing.
By separating test data (input values) from test logic (script), DDT facilitates the creation, editing, use, and scale-up management of both. In order to compare actual and expected outcomes for validations, DDT is a methodology that involves a series of automated test steps (organized in test scripts as reusable test logic) that are performed repeatedly for various data permutations (taken from data sources).
Benefits of Data Driven Testing
There are a host of benefits when it comes to Data Driven Testing. Let’s check out those over here.
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Regression testing
The main idea behind regression testing is to have a set of test cases that are scheduled to execute at each build. This is to make sure that the software’s previously functional features are unaffected by the additions made for the most recent release. DDT, or data-driven testing, speeds up this procedure. Regression tests can be done for several data sets in an end-to-end process since DDT uses numerous sets of data values for testing.
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Utilization
It establishes a rational and transparent division between the test data and the test scripts. Stated otherwise, you are spared from repeatedly changing the test cases to accommodate various sets of test input data. Reusable components are created when variables (test data) and logic (test scripts) are kept apart. Modifications made to one of the test script or test data will not impact the other.
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Reducing manual labor
In order to initiate an automated workflow, teams frequently still rely on manual interventions. It’s best to minimize this. A manual trigger is never an effective approach to test a navigational flow, therefore when we have a workflow with various navigational or re-directional paths, it’s essential to develop a test script that can handle all of this. Thus, it is always recommended to have the test-flow navigation integrated directly into the test script.
Why Has Data Driven Testing Has To Be Automated?
When testers are coerced into repeatedly doing the same task, automation becomes necessary. The testers become tired with such repetitive tasks, which lowers efficiency. The practice of hard-coding all of the data in the scripts has been shown to be inefficient, and transferring the hard-coded script from one test environment to another becomes laborious.
It is convenient to save data in automation testing in a different class file or external file formats, such as Word, Excel, text files, or even database tables, to prevent such scenarios.
What Is the Framework for Data-Driven Testing?
Instead of writing code from scratch, we can easily retrieve pre-existing code thanks to the DDT framework. It is not necessary to be a skilled programmer to use the software, as it can be used to get scripts from frameworks and quickly discover and solve script faults.
With just one test script, you may use the DDT framework’s automation testing platform to validate a test case against many kinds of test data. The test script enters each of these variables, and test data is saved in a file for both positive and negative testing. Reusable logic is thus provided by the framework, increasing test coverage.
Our attention should be directed toward learning how to input data and what the automated framework outlined would produce as output. Above all, how are we going to organize this data? This is due to the agenda’s reliance on test data within an automated system.
Parameterization and data-driven testing in Page Object Model
Two methods that can assist you in developing more reliable and reusable test scripts for QA automation are data-driven testing and parameterization. Without hard-coding them into your code, they let you execute the same test cases with other types of data, such as inputs, outputs, or expected results. Test coverage can rise, maintainability can be enhanced, and duplication can be decreased.
You must develop a data source with the required data and a data reader class to read and parse the data in order to use this kind of testing in POM. A test class also needs to be made that can recover the data and move it to the POM classes through the data reader class. To achieve this, the same test methods have to be written that loop over the data mentioning the class’s modes along with its data as parameters.
How can parameterization be applied in POM?
Instead of hard-coding variables or arguments into your test methods or classes, parameterization enables you to pass them dynamically. In this manner, you can avoid generating several test methods or classes by running the same test method or class with different values or parameters. Create a configuration file, such as a properties file with key-value pairs for browser, URL, timeout,etc., holding the values or arguments for your test methods or classes, in order to leverage parameterization in POM.
In order to read and load the values or arguments from your configuration file, you also need to construct a configuration reader class. To read and save the values or parameters in a map or properties object, you can use a library such as Apache Commons Configuration or Java Properties. Lastly, construct a base class that initializes the web driver and POM classes and retrieves values or arguments from the configuration reader class.
Furthermore, by adding or updating new values or data in one location without changing the code, you can increase the maintainability and dependability of your test scripts. Additionally, by testing more scenarios and variations with various data and values, you can improve the test coverage and quality of your test scripts.
An advanced automated testing platform can help a lot in data-driven testing in POM. An automated software testing platform consists of a collection of presumptions, ideas, and procedures. It serves as nothing more than an automated test execution environment. A framework enables testers to create useful tests that are cross-browser resilient, scalable, reusable, and maintainable.
One such platform is LambdaTest which allows you to monitor test results, run tests using real-time browser utility, have concurrent sessions, and much more. The dashboards give you access to automation logs, add issues and bugs, CI/CD, and project management among others. You can do seamless automation testing on 3000+ on a combination of browsers, operating systems and real devices.
LambdaTest also allows you to plan as well as automate tests in parallel on scalable Sеlеnium Grid. You can easily enhance your automation capabilities and streamline your testing processes. This will enable you to deliver exceptional software quality in the market!
After the framework is developed, it may be used for many projects within an organization with just minor modifications to the object repository, test data, and configuration. It facilitates quick implementation with little assistance from humans. With the right documentation, even a non-technical user can write scripts.
Imagine you have to automate a test for an application that requires a lot of input fields. Seldom would you hardcode the inputs before executing the test. However, hard coding will not work at scale. Hardcoding inputs will quickly become convoluted, perplexing, and unmanageable as you go through multiple iterations of valid input values for best-case, worst-case, positive, and negative test scenarios.
The creation, editing, use, and scaling of both test data (input values) and test logic (script) are made easier by DDT. A sequence of test steps (organized in test scripts as reusable test logic) are automated and performed concurrently for different permutations of data (obtained from data sources) in order to compare actual and expected outcomes for validations.
Final Words
In this post, we discussed the drawbacks of employing parameterization and data-driven testing with POM. Over time, creating and maintaining configuration files and data sources can get complicated and enormous. As a result, you need to make sure they match your application that is being tested accurately and consistently.
To read and use the data and values from your configuration files and data sources, you also need to choose and use the appropriate libraries and frameworks. Additionally, you have to deal with any exceptions or mistakes that come up when reading or utilizing them.
