xpathwebdriver 2.0.6
Selenium/webdriver wrapper for XPath and CSS selection
License: MIT
Keywords: testing, automation, web, unittest, webdriver, selenium, xpath, css

xpathwebdriver
==============

|.github/workflows/xpwd_ci.yml|

A python wrapper for interacting with Selenium through XPath and CSS
selectors. You can now use XPaths like ``//div/text()``:

.. code:: python

   from xpathwebdriver.browser import Browser

   browser = Browser()

   # xpath returns text
   for idx, t in enumerate(browser.select_xpath('//div/text()')):
       print(idx, t)

   # css selector returns elements
   for idx, elem in enumerate(browser.select_css('.result__title')):
       print(idx, elem.text)

Which will return you a string as expected. Something webdriver API
makes more complicated.

Means you can write all your tests based on XPath.

Also adds:

-  Interactive shell for testing XPath manually and easily against a
   live browser

   -  You can share the interactive shell with a script, to keep track
      of errors/debugging

-  Multiple browser management
-  Browser life management (whether to keep the browser open or kill it
   on exit)

   -  Management is done through python contexts (``with`` statement)

-  Useful settings for local and remote (headless) testing

   -  Also supports environment variables as settings
   -  Plus allowing custom settings that you can also push through
      environment variables

-  Screenshots comparison and diff management
-  Virtual display management (so you can run “headless” in a remote
   instance)

   -  you can use VNC to access the remote Browser

-  Adding ``xpath``, ``css``, ``selector`` methods to returned
   ``WebElement`` objects, to keep the Xpath functionality

Ubuntu quick installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can opt to use Chromium to simplify installation:

::

   sudo apt-get install -y python3-pip imagemagick findimagedupes tightvncserver xserver-xephyr xvfb unzip chromium-browser
   # chromium-chromedriver (from 22.04 and on you no longer need to install this package, seems it's obsolete and comes with chromium itself)
   sudo pip3 install xpathwebdriver Pillow ipython

You can quickly test it running:

::

   xpathshell

That will open an interactive shell with a browser object. Use TAB to
autocomplete available API. Use ``browser.driver`` to directly access
the webdriver object.

General installation
--------------------

::

   pip install xpathwebdriver

1. Install xpathwebdriver using pip.
2. Install google chrome.
3. Download chromedriver for your Chrome version and install it in your
   path. https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads
4. That generally should work on a modern Linux System (not tested but
   should also work on other oses). Try example in section below
5. For image comparison install ``pip install Pillow``,
   ``findimagedupes`` and ``imagemagick`` packages for your OS. (they
   are not automatically installed to keep basic requirements low) On
   ubuntu: ``sudo apt install imagemagick findimagedupes``
6. For interactive shell install ``pip install ipython``

Check “Installing Selenium” section for other browsers and details.

Example
-------

.. code:: python

   from xpathwebdriver.browser import Browser

   browser = Browser()
   browser.get_url('https://duckduckgo.com/')
   browser.fill(".//*[@id='search_form_input_homepage']", 'xpathwebdriver\n')
   # Using xpath that returns text
   for idx, t in enumerate(browser.select_xpath('//div/text()')):
       print(idx, t)
   # Using css selector which returns elements
   for idx, elem in enumerate(browser.select_css('.result__title')):
       print(idx, elem.text)

Documentation and tutorials
---------------------------

-  Check ``examples`` directory
-  The ``BrowserAPI.md`` file has a quick list of Browser’s API
-  Use ``xpathsell -e`` to print available environment variables for
   settings
-  Use ``xpathsell --settings-help`` to print settings detailed
   documentation

   -  or optionally check ``xpathwebdriver/default_settings.py``

IPython interactive shell
-------------------------

First install ipython ``pip install ipython`` (not installed to keep
basic requirements low) Run the ``xpathshell`` in your terminal, and you
should see something like:

::

   $ xpathshell
   Python 3.7.5rc1 (default, Oct  8 2019, 16:47:45)
   Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information
   IPython 7.9.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

   XpathBrowser in 'b' or 'browser' variables
    Current url: data:,
   In [1]: b.get('github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/')
   INFO 05:53:35:  Current url: https://github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/

For a faster development and debugging cycles you can run an interactive
shell which will let access the browser.

Or pass the url in the command arguments. Eg:
``xpathshell github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/``

Inside IPython you can enter ``browser.select_xpath?`` to get
documentation and can access API docs.

More ``XpathBrowser`` details at:

-  https://github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/blob/master/BrowserAPI.md
-  https://github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/blob/master/xpathwebdriver/xpath_browser.py
-  https://github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/blob/master/xpathwebdriver_tests/test_XpathBrowser.py

Using unittest library
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.. code:: python

   import unittest
   from xpathwebdriver.webdriver_manager import get_browser

   class SearchEnginesDemo(unittest.TestCase):
       def test_duckduckgo(self):
           with get_browser() as browser:
               browser.get_url('https://duckduckgo.com/')
               browser.fill('.//*[@id="search_form_input_homepage"]', 'xpathwebdriver\n')

Check a more options in the ``examples`` directory.

Installing Selenium
-------------------

Under Ubuntu you should easily install Selenium/Webdrivar with
``sudo apt install chromium-browser chromium-chromedriver`` Firefox
seems to come with webdriver out of the box on ubuntu.

Use the code below to test selenium and webdriver installation:

.. code:: python

   from selenium import webdriver
   import time
   driver = webdriver.Chrome() #or use another backend
   driver.maximize_window()
   driver.get('https://www.google.com')
   print('You have 10 secs to check the browser window...')
   time.sleep(10)

On other platforms find the easiest way to install selenium in your
environment.

Here some references:

-  https://www.seleniumhq.org/download/#thirdPartyDrivers
-  http://chromedriver.chromium.org/
-  https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/releases
-  [STRIKEOUT:PhantomJs] (abandoned)

Decompressed executables should be in your PATH. If you update python’s
``webdriver`` package make sure you update browsers and drivers.

Useful links for working with XPath
-----------------------------------

-  Xpath cheatsheets

   -  http://ricostacruz.com/cheatsheets/xpath.html
   -  https://web.archive.org/web/20200218033716/http://xpath.alephzarro.com/content/cheatsheet.html

-  Firefox addons

   -  https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/firebug/
   -  https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/firepath/

Killing processes hanging around
--------------------------------

Depending on your configuration from virtualdisplay and browser,
processes like:

::

   Xvnc
   Xvfb
   Xephyr
   chromedriver
   ...

may keep hanging around. You may want to kill them (on linux) with:

::

   # check the wanted process is alive
   ps faux | grep Xvnc
   # and you can kill it. If you are running as root, make sure you are not killing someone else's process too 
   pkill Xvnc

On other OS google on how to do it (on windows you can use the Task
Manager)

.. |.github/workflows/xpwd_ci.yml| image:: https://github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/actions/workflows/xpwd_ci.yml/badge.svg
   :target: https://github.com/joaduo/xpathwebdriver/actions/workflows/xpwd_ci.yml