Automated testing with Selenium IDE

Automated testing is an extremely useful bug-killing tool for the modern Web developer and a lot of vulnerability in fact are based on bugs.
With Selenium IDE, a free Firefox extension, you can easily record your clicks and inputs in the browser, set tests and replay the records. If a test failed you get a feedback.

I’ll show you an example, to make the power of Selenium clearer.

This example code echoes a form value.

<form>
<input type=”text” name=”name” value=”" />
<input type=”submit” value=”send” />
</form>

<? echo $_GET['name']; ?>

Start selenium and make sure the record lamp (red) is on. All steps will now record as long as the lamp is on.

Send a string “bla” over the form

Mark the output “bla” and choose in the right mouse context “verifyTextPresents bla”.
This is a testcase that “bla” is on the site displayed.

Go back to the selenium window and stop the recording (click on the red lamp).
Now it’s possible to run a playback of the recording, in 3 tempos (Run, Walk, Step), by pressing the green play button.

Ok time for a bug, change the variable name in the php line from “name” to “foo”

<form>
<input type=”text” name=”name” value=”" />
<input type=”submit” value=”send” />
</form>

<? echo $_GET['foo']; ?>

now we run a test in selenium and get a red marked error, because selenium doesn’t found the string “bla”.

This is only a bit of the power from Selenium. You can also debug with breakpoints, save tests in a lot of formats, edit the tests by hand, …

website: http://www.openqa.org/selenium-ide/
example video: http://wiki.openqa.org/display/SIDE/Recording+a+Test