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SeleniumLibrary is a web testing library for Robot Framework that utilizes the Selenium tool internally. The project is hosted on GitHub and downloads can be found from PyPI.
SeleniumLibrary works with Selenium 3. It supports Python 2.7 as well as Python 3.4 or newer. In addition to the normal Python interpreter, it works also with PyPy and Jython. Unfortunately Selenium is not currently supported by IronPython and thus this library does not work with IronPython either.
SeleniumLibrary is based on the old SeleniumLibrary that was forked to Selenium2Library and then later renamed back to SeleniumLibrary. See the Versions and History sections below for more information about different versions and the overall project history.
See keyword documentation for available keywords and more information about the library in general.
The recommended installation method is using pip:
pip install --upgrade robotframework-seleniumlibrary
Running this command installs also the latest Selenium and Robot Framework
versions, but you still need to install browser drivers separately.
The --upgrade option can be omitted when installing the library for the
first time.
Those migrating from Selenium2Library can install SeleniumLibrary so that it is exposed also as Selenium2Library:
pip install --upgrade robotframework-selenium2library
The above command installs the normal SeleniumLibrary as well as a new Selenium2Library version that is just a thin wrapper to SeleniumLibrary. That allows importing Selenium2Library in tests while migrating to SeleniumLibrary.
To install the last legacy Selenium2Library version, use this command instead:
pip install robotframework-selenium2library==1.8.0
With resent versions of pip it is possible to install directly from the
GitHub repository. To install latest source from the master branch, use
this command:
pip install git+https://github.com/robotframework/SeleniumLibrary.git
Please note that installation will take some time, because pip will
clone the SeleniumLibrary project to a temporary directory and then
perform the installation.
See Robot Framework installation instructions for detailed information
about installing Python and Robot Framework itself. For more details about
using pip see its own documentation.
After installing the library, you still need to install browser and operating system specific browser drivers for all those browsers you want to use in tests. These are the exact same drivers you need to use with Selenium also when not using SeleniumLibrary. More information about drivers can be found from Selenium documentation.
The general approach to install a browser driver is downloading a right
driver, such as chromedriver for Chrome, and placing it into
a directory that is in PATH. Drivers for different browsers
can be found via Selenium documentation or by using your favorite
search engine with a search term like selenium chrome browser driver.
New browser driver versions are released to support features in
new browsers, fix bug, or otherwise, and you need to keep an eye on them
to know when to update drivers you use.
To use SeleniumLibrary in Robot Framework tests, the library needs to
first be imported using the Library setting as any other library.
The library accepts some import time arguments, which are documented
in the keyword documentation along with all the keywords provided
by the library.
When using Robot Framework, it is generally recommended to write as
easy-to-understand tests as possible. The keywords provided by
SeleniumLibrary are pretty low level, though, and often require
implementation specific arguments like element locators to be passed
as arguments. It is thus typically a good idea to write tests using
Robot Framework's higher level keywords that utilize SeleniumLibrary
keywords internally. This is illustrated by the following example
where SeleniumLibrary keywords like Input Text are primarily
used by higher level keywords like Input Username.
*** Settings ***
Documentation Simple example using SeleniumLibrary.
Library SeleniumLibrary
*** Variables ***
${LOGIN URL} http://localhost:7272
${BROWSER} Chrome
*** Test Cases ***
Valid Login
Open Browser To Login Page
Input Username demo
Input Password mode
Submit Credentials
Welcome Page Should Be Open
[Teardown] Close Browser
*** Keywords ***
Open Browser To Login Page
Open Browser ${LOGIN URL} ${BROWSER}
Title Should Be Login Page
Input Username
[Arguments] ${username}
Input Text username_field ${username}
Input Password
[Arguments] ${password}
Input Text password_field ${password}
Submit Credentials
Click Button login_button
Welcome Page Should Be Open
Title Should Be Welcome PageThe above example is a slightly modified version of an example in a demo project that illustrates using Robot Framework and SeleniumLibrary. See the demo for more examples that you can also execute on your own machine. For more information about Robot Framework test data syntax in general see the Robot Framework User Guide.
Before creating your own library which extends the SeleniumLibrary, please consider would
the extension be also useful also for general usage. If it could be useful also for general
usage, please create a new issue describing the enhancement request and even better if the
issue is backed up by a pull request.
If the enhancement is not generally useful, example solution is domain specific, then the SeleniumLibrary offers a public API which can be used to build own libraries. All keyword methods are available in the public API. There are also generally useful methods and attributes available, which are useful for creating new libraries. Please see extending documentation for more details about the available methods and for examples how the library can be extended.
If the provided documentation is not enough, there are various support forums available:
- robotframework-users mailing list
#seleniumlibraryand#seleniumlibrary-devchannels in Robot Framework Slack community- SeleniumLibrary issue tracker for bug reports and concrete enhancement requests
- Other support forums including paid support
SeleniumLibrary has over the years lived under SeleniumLibrary and Selenium2Library names and different library versions have supported different Selenium and Python versions. This is summarized in the table below and the History section afterwards explains the project history a bit more.
| Project | Selenium Version | Python Version | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| SeleniumLibrary 2.9.2 and earlier | Selenium 1 and 2 | Python 2.5-2.7 | The original SeleniumLibrary using Selenium RC API. |
| Selenium2Library 1.8.0 and earlier | Selenium 2 and 3 | Python 2.6-2.7 | Fork of SeleniumLibrary using Selenium WebDriver API. |
| SeleniumLibrary 3.0 and 3.1 | Selenium 2 and 3 | Python 2.7 and 3.3+ | Selenium2Library renamed and with Python 3 support and new architecture. |
| SeleniumLibrary 3.2 and newer | Selenium 3 | Python 2.7 and 3.4+ | Drops Selenium 2 support. |
| Selenium2Library 3.0 | Depends on SeleniumLibrary | Depends on SeleniumLibrary | Thin wrapper for SeleniumLibrary 3.0 to ease transition. |
SeleniumLibrary originally used the Selenium Remote Controller (RC) API. When Selenium 2 was introduced with the new but backwards incompatible WebDriver API, SeleniumLibrary kept using Selenium RC and separate Selenium2Library using WebDriver was forked. These projects contained mostly the same keywords and in most cases Selenium2Library was a drop-in replacement for SeleniumLibrary.
Over the years development of the old SeleniumLibrary stopped and also the Selenium RC API it used was deprecated. Selenium2Library was developed further and replaced the old library as the de facto web testing library for Robot Framework.
When Selenium 3 was released in 2016, it was otherwise backwards compatible with Selenium 2, but the deprecated Selenium RC API was removed. This had two important effects:
- The old SeleniumLibrary could not anymore be used with new Selenium versions. This project was pretty much dead.
- Selenium2Library was badly named as it supported Selenium 3 just fine. This project needed a new name.
At the same time when Selenium 3 was released, Selenium2Library was going through larger architecture changes in order to ease future maintenance and to make adding Python 3 support easier. With all these big internal and external changes, it made sense to rename Selenium2Library back to SeleniumLibrary. This decision basically meant following changes:
- Create separate repository for the old SeleniumLibrary to preserve its history since Selenium2Library was forked.
- Rename Selenium2Library project and the library itself to SeleniumLibrary.
- Add new Selenium2Library project to ease transitioning from Selenium2Library to SeleniumLibrary.
Going forward, all new development will happen in the new SeleniumLibrary project.