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Getting Started with WebDriver C# in 10 Minutes

4.21/5 (13 votes)
7 Aug 2015Ms-PL2 min read 38.9K  
Short tutorial on how to start using one of the world's best web automation frameworks - WebDriver. Exact steps to follow through code in C# and images.

Introduction

WebDriver is a tool for automating testing web applications, and, in particular, to verify that they work as expected. It aims to provide a friendly API that’s easy to explore and understand, which will help make your tests easier to read and maintain. It’s not tied to any particular test framework so that it can be used equally well with MSTest, NUnit, TestNG, JUnit and so on. This “Getting Started” guide introduces you to WebDriver’s C# API and helps get you started becoming familiar with it.

Create Your First WebDriver Test Project

  1. Create New Test Project in Visual Studio.

  2. Install NuGet package manager and navigate to it.

  3. Search for Selenium and install the first item in the result list.

Code Examples In WebDriver

Create an instance of a driver.

C#
IWebDriver driverOne = new FirefoxDriver();
IWebDriver driverTwo = new InternetExlorerDriver("C:\\PathToMyIeDriverBinaries\");

Only the FirefoxDriver can be created without parameters. For all other drivers, you need to point the location where the particular driver is downloaded.

?dditional steps are required to use Chrome Driver, Opera Driver, Android Driver and iPhone Driver.

Navigate to specific URL.

C#
driverOne.Navigate().GoToUrl("<a href="http://automatetheplanet.com/" rel="noreferrer" style="display: inline !important; removed: help;">http://automatetheplanet.com/</a>");

Locating Elements with WebDriver

By ID

C#
IWebElement element = driverOne.FindElement(By.Id("myUniqueId"));

By Class (Find more than one element on the page)

C#
IList<IWebElement> elements = driverOne.FindElements(By.ClassName("green"));

By Tag Name

C#
IWebElement frame = driverOne.FindElement(By.TagName("iframe"));

By Name

C#
IWebElement cheese = driverOne.FindElement(By.Name("goran"));

By Link Text

C#
IWebElement link = driverOne.FindElement(By.LinkText("best features"));

By XPath

C#
IList<IWebElement> inputs = driverOne.FindElements(By.XPath("//input"));

By CSS Selector

C#
IWebElement css = driverOne.FindElement(By.CssSelector("#green span.dairy.baged"));

Chaining Locators

Use a Chain of Locators to find a particular element.

C#
IWebElement hardToFind = this.driverOne.FindElement
(By.ClassName("firstElementTable")).FindElement(By.Id("secondElement"));

IWebElement Methods

IWebElement Properties

HTML Element Actions in WebDriver

Type Text into a field using Selenium WebDriver SendKeys() function.

C#
IWebElement element = driverOne.FindElement(By.Name("search"));
element.SendKeys("Automate The Planet!");

Select Drop Down Value. First, you need to add NuGet Package to your project- Selenium.Support.

C#
SelectElement selectElement = new SelectElement(driver.FindElement(By.XPath("/html/body/select")));
selectElement.SelectByText("Planet");

So Far in the 'Pragmatic Automation with WebDriver' Series

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL)