Ruby Bindings

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Introduction

The Ruby bindings for Selenium/WebDriver are available as the selenium-webdriver gem. The web page explains how to install the selenium-webdriver gem. If you're looking for a slightly higher level API built on the same technology, you may want to check out watir or capybara.

The bindings support Ruby 2.1 through 2.4.

• API docs
• Changelog

API Example

require "selenium-webdriver"

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
driver.navigate.to "http://google.com"

element = driver.find_element(name: 'q')
element.send_keys "Hello WebDriver!"
element.submit

puts driver.title

driver.quit

Driver examples:

# execute arbitrary javascript
puts driver.execute_script("return window.location.pathname")

# pass elements between Ruby and JavaScript
element = driver.execute_script("return document.body")
driver.execute_script("return arguments[0].tagName", element) #=> "BODY"

# wait for a specific element to show up
wait = Selenium::WebDriver::Wait.new(timeout: 10) # seconds
wait.until { driver.find_element(id: "foo") }

# switch to a frame
driver.switch_to.frame "some-frame" # id
driver.switch_to.frame driver.find_element(id: 'some-frame') # frame element

# switch back to the main document
driver.switch_to.default_content

# repositioning and resizing browser window:
driver.manage.window.move_to(300, 400)
driver.manage.window.resize_to(500, 800)
driver.manage.window.maximize

Element examples:

# get an attribute
class_name = element.attribute("class")

# is the element visible on the page?
element.displayed?

# click the element
element.click

# get the element location
element.location

# scroll the element into view, then return its location
element.location_once_scrolled_into_view

# get the width and height of an element
element.size

# press space on an element - see Selenium::WebDriver::Keys for possible values
element.send_keys :space

# get the text of an element
element.text

Advanced user interactions (see ActionBuilder):

driver.action.key_down(:shift).
              click(element).
              double_click(second_element).
              key_up(:shift).
              drag_and_drop(element, third_element).
              perform

IE

Make sure that Internet Options → Security has the same Protected Mode setting (on or off, it doesn't matter as long as it is the same value) for all zones.

Chrome

Command line switches

For a list of switches, see this list.

options = Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options.new
options.add_argument('--ignore-certificate-errors')
options.add_argument('--disable-popup-blocking')
options.add_argument('--disable-translate')
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :chrome, options: options

Tweaking profile preferences

prefs = {
  prompt_for_download: false, 
  default_directory: "/path/to/dir"
}
options = Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options.new
options.add_preference(:download, prefs)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :chrome, options: options

See ChromeDriver documentation.

Remote

The RemoteWebDriver makes it easy to control a browser running on another machine. Download the Selenium Standalone Server (from Downloads) and launch:

java -jar selenium-server-standalone.jar

Then connect to it from Ruby

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote

By default, this connects to the server running on localhost:4444 and opens Chrome. To connect to another machine, use the :url option:

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, url: "http://myserver:4444/wd/hub"

To launch another browser with the default capabilities, use the :desired_capabilities option:

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, desired_capabilities: :firefox

You can also pass an instance of Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities, e.g.:

caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.internet_explorer(native_events: false)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, desired_capabilities: caps

You can change arbitrary capabilities:

caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.internet_explorer
caps['enablePersistentHover'] = false

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, desired_capabilities: caps

You may want to set the proxy settings of the remote browser (this currently only works for Firefox):

caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.firefox(proxy: Selenium::WebDriver::Proxy.new(http: "myproxyaddress:8080"))
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, desired_capabilities: caps

Or if you have a proxy in front of the remote server:

client = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Http::Default.new
client.proxy = Selenium::Proxy.new(http: "proxy.org:8080")

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, http_client: client

See Proxy documentation for more options.

For the remote Firefox driver you can configure the profile, see the section Tweaking Firefox preferences.

Firefox

Ruby currently includes support for Legacy FirefoxDriver (used in Firefox versions < 48), and the new geckodriver. As of Selenium 3.x, Geckodriver is the default implementation. If you want to use the Legacy Driver with an older version of Firefox you can do:

capabilities = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.firefox(marionette: false)
Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, desired_capabilities: capabilities

Both implementations allow you configure the profile used. The examples below, however, are for GeckoDriver.

Adding an extension

profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Profile.new
profile.add_extension("/path/to/extension.xpi")
options = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Options.new
options.profile = profile
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, options: options

Using an existing profile

You can use an existing profile as a template for the WebDriver profile by passing the profile name (see firefox -ProfileManager to set up custom profiles.)

options = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Options.new
options.profile = "my-existing-profile"
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, options: options

If you want to use your default profile, pass profile = "default"

You can also get a Profile instance for an existing profile and tweak its preferences. This does not modify the existing profile, only the one used by WebDriver.

default_profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Profile.from_name "default"
default_profile.assume_untrusted_certificate_issuer = false

options = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Options.new(profile: default_profile)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, options: options

Tweaking Firefox preferences

Use a proxy:

profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Profile.new
proxy = Selenium::WebDriver::Proxy.new(http: "proxy.org:8080")
profile.proxy = proxy
options = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Options.new(profile: profile)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, options: options

Automatically download files to a given folder:

profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Profile.new
profile['browser.download.dir'] = "/tmp/webdriver-downloads"
profile['browser.download.folderList'] = 2
profile['browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk'] = "application/pdf"
profile['pdfjs.disabled'] = true
options = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Options.new(profile: profile)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, options: options

If you are using the remote driver you can still configure the Firefox profile:

profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Profile.new
profile['foo.bar'] = true

capabilities = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.firefox(firefox_profile: profile)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, desired_capabilities: capabilities

For a list of possible preferences, see this page.

Custom Firefox path

If your Firefox executable is in a non-standard location:

options = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Options.new
options.binary = "/path/to/firefox" 
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, options: options

SSL Certificates

The Legacy Firefox driver ignores invalid SSL certificates by default. If this is not the behavior you want, you can do:

profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Firefox::Profile.new
profile.secure_ssl = true
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, profile: profile

geckodriver will not implicitly trust untrusted or self-signed TLS certificates on navigation. To override this you can do:

capabilities = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.firefox(accept_insecure_certs: true)
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, desired_capabilities: capabilities

Safari

As of 3.0, the only supported safari driver is the one maintained by Apple. It requires Safari 10 or greater; support for earlier versions of Safari has been removed.

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :safari
driver.navigate.to "http://apple.com"

Technology Preview

The latest code for the Safari Driver is bundled with the Safari Technology Preview. To use it:

Selenium::WebDriver::Safari.driver_path = "/Applications/Safari\ Technology\ Preview.app/Contents/MacOS/safaridriver"
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :safari

Timeouts

Implicit waits

WebDriver lets you configure implicit waits, so that a call to #find_element will wait for a specified amount of time before raising a NoSuchElementError:

  driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
  driver.manage.timeouts.implicit_wait = 3 # seconds

Explicit waits

Use the Wait class to explicitly wait for some condition:

  wait = Selenium::WebDriver::Wait.new(timeout: 3)
  wait.until { driver.find_element(id: "cheese").displayed? }

Internal timeouts

Internally, WebDriver uses HTTP to communicate with a lot of the drivers (the JsonWireProtocol). By default, Net::HTTP from Ruby's standard library is used, which has a default timeout of 60 seconds. If you call e.g. Driver#get, Driver#click on a page that takes more than 60 seconds to load, you'll see a Timeout::Error raised from Net::HTTP. You can configure this timeout (before launching a browser) by doing:

  client = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Http::Default.new
  client.read_timeout = 120 # seconds
  driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :remote, http_client: client

JavaScript dialogs

You can use WebDriver to handle Javascript alert(), prompt() and confirm() dialogs. The API for all three is the same.

require "selenium-webdriver"

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
driver.navigate.to "http://mysite.com/page_with_alert.html"

driver.find_element(name: 'element_with_alert_javascript').click
a = driver.switch_to.alert
if a.text == 'A value you are looking for'
  a.dismiss
else
  a.accept
end

Using Curb or your own HTTP client

For internal HTTP communication, Net::HTTP is used by default. If you e.g. have the Curb gem installed, you can switch to it by doing:

require 'selenium/webdriver/remote/http/curb'

client = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Http::Curb.new
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox, http_client: client

Using persistent HTTP connections

If you have the net-http-persistent gem installed, you can use it to get keep-alive connections. This will significantly reduce the ephemeral ports usage of WebDriver, which is useful in some contexts. Keep-alive connections are also supported in ChromeDriver.

require 'selenium/webdriver/remote/http/persistent'

client = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Http::Persistent.new
driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :chrome, http_client: client

Logging

There is built-in logger available, by default it prints only warning messages. If you want to enable more verbose logging, add this to your code:

Selenium::WebDriver.logger.level = :info

If you want full logging enabled:

Selenium::WebDriver.logger.level = :debug

By default, logger prints messages to standard output, but you can also write to a file:

Selenium::WebDriver.logger.output = 'selenium.log'