Q #1) What is Automation Testing?

Automation testing or Test Automation is a process of automating the manual process to

test the application/system under test. Automation testing involves the use of a separate
testing tool which lets you create test scripts which can be executed repeatedly and
doesn’t require any manual intervention.

Q #2) What are the benefits of Automation Testing?

Benefits of Automation testing are:

1. Supports execution of repeated test cases

2. Aids in testing a large test matrix
3. Enables parallel execution
4. Encourages unattended execution
5. Improves accuracy thereby reducing human-generated errors
6. Saves time and money
Q #3) Why should Selenium be selected as a test tool?
Selenium

1. is a free and open source

2. have a large user base and helping communities
3. have cross Browser compatibility (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari etc.)
4. have great platform compatibility (Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc.)
5. supports multiple programming languages (Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Pearl etc.)
6. has fresh and regular repository developments
7. supports distributed testing
Q #4) What is Selenium? What are the different Selenium components?
Selenium is one of the most popular automated testing suites. Selenium is designed in a
way to support and encourage automation testing of functional aspects of web-based
applications and a wide range of browsers and platforms. Due to its existence in the
open source community, it has become one of the most accepted tools amongst the
testing professionals.

Selenium is not just a single tool or a utility, rather a package of several testing tools and
for the same reason, it is referred to as a Suite. Each of these tools is designed to cater
different testing and test environment requirements.

The suite package constitutes the following sets of tools:

 Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE) – Selenium IDE is a

record and playback tool. It is distributed as a Firefox Plugin.
 Selenium Remote Control (RC) – Selenium RC is a server that allows a user to
create test scripts in the desired programming language. It also allows executing
test scripts within the large spectrum of browsers.
 Selenium WebDriver – WebDriver is a different tool altogether that has various
advantages over Selenium RC. WebDriver directly communicates with the web
browser and uses its native compatibility to automate.
 Selenium Grid – Selenium Grid is used to distribute your test execution on
multiple platforms and environments concurrently.
Q #5) What are the testing types that can be supported by Selenium?
Selenium supports the following types of testing:
 1. Functional Testing
2. Regression Testing
Q #6) What are the limitations of Selenium?
Following are the limitations of Selenium:

 Selenium supports testing of only web-based applications

 Mobile applications cannot be tested using Selenium
 Captcha and Barcode readers cannot be tested using Selenium
 Reports can only be generated using third-party tools like TestNG or JUnit.
 As Selenium is a free tool, thus there is no ready vendor support through the user
can find numerous helping communities.
 The user is expected to possess prior programming language knowledge.
Q #7) What is the difference between Selenium IDE, Selenium RC, and WebDriver?
Feature Selenium IDE Selenium RC WebDriver

Browser Selenium IDE comes as a Selenium RC supports a varied WebDriver supports

Compatibility Firefox plugin, thus it range of versions of Mozilla range of versions of M
supports only Firefox Firefox, Google Chrome, Firefox, Google Chro
Internet Explorer and Opera Internet Explorer and
Also supports
HtmlUnitDriver whic
GUI less or headless
browser.

Record and Selenium IDE supports Selenium RC doesn't supports WebDriver doesn't su
Playback record and playback record and playback feature record and playback f
feature

Server Selenium IDE doesn't Selenium RC requires server to WebDriver doesn't re

Requirement require any server to be be started before executing the any server to be starte
started before executing test scripts before executing the
the test scripts scripts

Architecture Selenium IDE is a Selenium RC is a JavaScript WebDriver uses the

Javascript based based Framework browser's native
framework compatibility to autom

Object Oriented Selenium IDE is not an Selenium RC is semi object WebDriver is a purel
object oriented tool oriented tool oriented tool

Dynamic Finders Selenium IDE doesn't Selenium RC doesn't support WebDriver supports
(for locating web support dynamic finders dynamic finders dynamic finders
elements on a
webpage)

Handling Alerts, Selenium IDE doesn't Selenium RC doesn't explicitly WebDriver offers a w
Navigations, explicitly provides aids to provides aids to handle alerts, range of utilities and
Dropdowns handle alerts, navigations, navigations, dropdowns that helps in handling
dropdowns navigations, and drop
efficiently and effecti
 Feature Selenium IDE Selenium RC WebDriver

WAP Selenium IDE doesn't Selenium RC doesn't support WebDriver is designe

(iPhone/Android) support testing of testing of iPhone/Andriod way to efficiently sup
Testing iPhone/Andriod applications testing of iPhone/And
applications applications. The too
with a large range of
for WAP based testin
For example, Android
iPhoneDriver

Listener Support Selenium IDE doesn't Selenium RC doesn't support WebDriver supports
support listeners listeners implementation of Li

Speed Selenium IDE is fast as it Selenium RC is slower than WebDriver communi

is plugged in with the WebDriver as it doesn't directly with the web
web-browser that communicates directly with the browsers. Thus makin
launches the test. Thus, browser; rather it sends selenese much faster.
the IDE and browser commands over to Selenium
communicates directly Core which in turn
communicates with the browser.
Q #8) When should I use Selenium IDE?
Selenium IDE is the simplest and easiest of all the tools within the Selenium Package.
Its record and playback feature makes it exceptionally easy to learn with minimal
acquaintances to any programming language. Selenium IDE is an ideal tool for a naïve
user.

Q #9) What is Selenese?

Selenese is the language which is used to write test scripts in Selenium IDE.

Q #10) What are the different types of locators in Selenium?

The locator can be termed as an address that identifies a web element uniquely within
the webpage. Thus, to identify web elements accurately and precisely we have different
types of locators in Selenium:
 ID
 ClassName
 Name
 TagName
 LinkText
 PartialLinkText
 Xpath
 CSS Selector
 DOM
Q #11) What is the difference between assert and verify commands?
Assert: Assert command checks whether the given condition is true or false. Let’s say
we assert whether the given element is present on the web page or not. If the condition
is true then the program control will execute the next test step but if the condition is
false, the execution would stop and no further test would be executed.
Verify: Verify command also checks whether the given condition is true or false.
Irrespective of the condition being true or false, the program execution doesn’t halt i.e.
any failure during verification would not stop the execution and all the test steps would
be executed.
Q #12) What is an XPath?
XPath is used to locate a web element based on its XML path. XML stands for
Extensible Markup Language and is used to store, organize and transport arbitrary data.
It stores data in a key-value pair which is very much similar to HTML tags. Both being
markup languages and since they fall under the same umbrella, XPath can be used to
locate HTML elements.
The fundamental behind locating elements using XPath is the traversing between
various elements across the entire page and thus enabling a user to find an element with
the reference of another element.

Q #13) What is the difference between “/” and “//” in Xpath?

Single Slash “/” – Single slash is used to create Xpath with absolute path i.e. the xpath
would be created to start selection from the document node/start node.
Double Slash “//” – Double slash is used to create Xpath with relative path i.e. the
xpath would be created to start selection from anywhere within the document.
Q #14) What is Same origin policy and how it can be handled?
The problem of same origin policy disallows to access the DOM of a document from an
origin that is different from the origin we are trying to access the document.

Origin is a sequential combination of scheme, host, and port of the URL. For example,
for a URL https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/resources/, the origin is a combination of
http, softwaretestinghelp.com, 80 correspondingly.

Thus the Selenium Core (JavaScript Program) cannot access the elements from an
origin that is different from where it was launched. For Example, if I have launched the
JavaScript Program from “https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com”, then I would be able to
access the pages within the same domain such as
“https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/resources” or
“https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/istqb-free-updates/”. The other domains like
google.com, seleniumhq.org would no more be accessible.

So, In order to handle the same origin policy, Selenium Remote Control was introduced.
Q #15) When should I use Selenium Grid?
Selenium Grid can be used to execute same or different test scripts on multiple
platforms and browsers concurrently so as to achieve distributed test execution, testing
under different environments and saving execution time remarkably.
Q #16) What do we mean by Selenium 1 and Selenium 2?
Selenium RC and WebDriver, in a combination, are popularly known as Selenium 2.
Selenium RC alone is also referred to as Selenium 1.
Q #17) Which is the latest Selenium tool?
WebDriver

Q #18) How do I launch the browser using WebDriver?

The following syntax can be used to launch Browser:
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
WebDriver driver = new InternetExplorerDriver();
Q #19) What are the different types of Drivers available in WebDriver?
The different drivers available in WebDriver are:

 FirefoxDriver
 InternetExplorerDriver
 ChromeDriver
 SafariDriver
 OperaDriver
 AndroidDriver
 IPhoneDriver
 HtmlUnitDriver
Q #20) What are the different types of waits available in WebDriver?
There are two types of waits available in WebDriver:
1. Implicit Wait
2. Explicit Wait
Implicit Wait: Implicit waits are used to provide a default waiting time (say 30 seconds)
between each consecutive test step/command across the entire test script. Thus, the
subsequent test step would only execute when the 30 seconds have elapsed after
executing the previous test step/command.
Explicit Wait: Explicit waits are used to halt the execution till the time a particular
condition is met or the maximum time has elapsed. Unlike Implicit waits, explicit waits
are applied for a particular instance only.
Q #21) How to type in a textbox using Selenium?
The user can use sendKeys(“String to be entered”) to enter the string in the textbox.

Syntax:
WebElement username = drv.findElement(By.id(“Email”));
// entering username
username.sendKeys(“sth”);
Q #22) How can you find if an element in displayed on the screen?
WebDriver facilitates the user with the following methods to check the visibility of the
web elements. These web elements can be buttons, drop boxes, checkboxes, radio
buttons, labels etc.

1. isDisplayed()
2. isSelected()
3. isEnabled()
Syntax:
isDisplayed():
boolean buttonPresence = driver.findElement(By.id(“gbqfba”)).isDisplayed();
isSelected():
boolean buttonSelected = driver.findElement(By.id(“gbqfba”)).isSelected();
isEnabled():
boolean searchIconEnabled = driver.findElement(By.id(“gbqfb”)).isEnabled();
Q #23) How can we get a text of a web element?
Get command is used to retrieve the inner text of the specified web element. The
command doesn’t require any parameter but returns a string value. It is also one of the
extensively used commands for verification of messages, labels, errors etc displayed on
the web pages.

Syntax:
String Text = driver.findElement(By.id(“Text”)).getText();
Q #24) How to select value in a dropdown?
The value in the dropdown can be selected using WebDriver’s Select class.

Syntax:
selectByValue:
Select selectByValue = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id(“SelectID_One”)));
selectByValue.selectByValue(“greenvalue”);
selectByVisibleText:
Select selectByVisibleText = new Select (driver.findElement(By.id(“SelectID_Two”)));
selectByVisibleText.selectByVisibleText(“Lime”);
selectByIndex:
Select selectByIndex = new Select(driver.findElement(By.id(“SelectID_Three”)));
selectByIndex.selectByIndex(2);
Q #25) What are the different types of navigation commands?
Following are the navigation commands:
navigate().back() – The above command requires no parameters and takes back the
user to the previous webpage in the web browser’s history.
Sample code:
driver.navigate().back();
navigate().forward() – This command lets the user to navigate to the next web page
with reference to the browser’s history.
Sample code:
driver.navigate().forward();
navigate().refresh() – This command lets the user to refresh the current web page there
by reloading all the web elements.
Sample code:
driver.navigate().refresh();
navigate().to() – This command lets the user to launch a new web browser window and
navigate to the specified URL.
Sample code:
driver.navigate().to(“https://google.com”);
Q #26) How to click on a hyper link using linkText?
driver.findElement(By.linkText(“Google”)).click();
The command finds the element using link text and then click on that element and thus
the user would be re-directed to the corresponding page.

The above-mentioned link can also be accessed by using the following command.

driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText(“Goo”)).click();
The above command finds the element based on the substring of the link provided in the
parenthesis and thus partialLinkText() finds the web element with the specified substring
and then clicks on it.

Q #27) How to handle frame in WebDriver?

An inline frame acronym as iframe is used to insert another document within the current
HTML document or simply a web page into a web page by enabling nesting.

Select iframe by id
driver.switchTo().frame(“ID of the frame“);
Locating iframe using tagName
driver.switchTo().frame(driver.findElements(By.tagName(“iframe”).get(0));
Locating iframe using index
frame(index)
driver.switchTo().frame(0);
frame(Name of Frame)
driver.switchTo().frame(“name of the frame”);
frame(WebElement element)
Select Parent Window
driver.switchTo().defaultContent();
Q #28) When do we use findElement() and findElements()?
findElement(): findElement() is used to find the first element in the current web page
matching to the specified locator value. Take a note that only first matching element
would be fetched.
Syntax:
WebElement element = driver.findElements(By.xpath(“//div[@id=’example’]//ul//li”));
findElements(): findElements() is used to find all the elements in the current web page
matching to the specified locator value. Take a note that all the matching elements
would be fetched and stored in the list of WebElements.
Syntax:
List <WebElement> elementList
= driver.findElements(By.xpath(“//div[@id=’example’]//ul//li”));
Q #29) How to find more than one web element in the list?
At times, we may come across elements of the same type like multiple hyperlinks,
images etc arranged in an ordered or unordered list. Thus, it makes absolute sense to
deal with such elements by a single piece of code and this can be done using
WebElement List.

Sample Code
1 // Storing the list
List <WebElement> elementList =
2
driver.findElements(By.xpath("//div[@id='example']//ul//li"));
3 // Fetching the size of the list
4 int listSize = elementList.size();
5 for (int i=0; i<listSize; i++)
6{
7 // Clicking on each service provider link
8 serviceProviderLinks.get(i).click();
// Navigating back to the previous page that stores link to service
9
providers
10 driver.navigate().back();
11 }
Q #30) What is the difference between driver.close() and driver.quit command?
close(): WebDriver’s close() method closes the web browser window that the user is
currently working on or we can also say the window that is being currently accessed by
the WebDriver. The command neither requires any parameter nor does it return any
value.
quit(): Unlike close() method, quit() method closes down all the windows that the
program has opened. Same as close() method, the command neither requires any
parameter nor does is return any value.
Q #31) Can Selenium handle windows based pop up?
Selenium is an automation testing tool which supports only web application testing.
Therefore, windows pop up cannot be handled using Selenium.

Q #32) How can we handle web-based pop-up?

WebDriver offers the users a very efficient way to handle these pop-ups using Alert
interface. There are the four methods that we would be using along with the Alert
interface.
 void dismiss() – The dismiss() method clicks on the “Cancel” button as soon as
the pop-up window appears.
 void accept() – The accept() method clicks on the “Ok” button as soon as the
pop-up window appears.
 String getText() – The getText() method returns the text displayed on the alert
box.
 void sendKeys(String stringToSend) – The sendKeys() method enters the
specified string pattern into the alert box.
Syntax:
// accepting javascript alert
Alert alert = driver.switchTo().alert();
alert.accept();
Q #33) How can we handle windows based pop up?
Selenium is an automation testing tool which supports only web application testing, that
means, it doesn’t support testing of windows based applications. However Selenium
alone can’t help the situation but along with some third-party intervention, this problem
can be overcome. There are several third-party tools available for handling window
based pop-ups along with the selenium like AutoIT, Robot class etc.

Q #34) How to assert the title of the web page?

//verify the title of the web page
assertTrue(“The title of the window is incorrect.”,driver.getTitle().equals(“Title of the
page”));
Q #35) How to mouse hover on a web element using WebDriver?
WebDriver offers a wide range of interaction utilities that the user can exploit to
automate mouse and keyboard events. Action Interface is one such utility which
simulates the single user interactions.

Thus, In the following scenario, we have used Action Interface to mouse hover on a drop
down which then opens a list of options.

Sample Code:
1 // Instantiating Action Interface
2 Actions actions=new Actions(driver);
3 // howering on the dropdown
actions.moveToElement(driver.findElement(By.id("id of the
4
dropdown"))).perform();
5 // Clicking on one of the items in the list options
6 WebElement subLinkOption=driver.findElement(By.id("id of the sub link"));
7 subLinkOption.click();
Q #36) How to retrieve CSS properties of an element?
The values of the css properties can be retrieved using a get() method:

Syntax:
driver.findElement(By.id(“id“)).getCssValue(“name of css attribute”);
driver.findElement(By.id(“id“)).getCssValue(“font-size”);
Q #37) How to capture screenshot in WebDriver?
1 import org.junit.After;
2 import org.junit.Before;
3 import org.junit.Test;
4 import java.io.File;

5 import java.io.IOException;
6 import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
7 import org.openqa.selenium.OutputType;
8 import org.openqa.selenium.TakesScreenshot;
9 import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
10 import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
11
12 public class CaptureScreenshot {
13 WebDriver driver;
14 @Before
15 public void setUp() throws Exception {
16 driver = new FirefoxDriver();
17 driver.get("https://google.com");
18 }

19 @After
20 public void tearDown() throws Exception {
21 driver.quit();
22 }

23
24 @Test
25 public void test() throws IOException {
26 // Code to capture the screenshot
File scrFile =
27
((TakesScreenshot)driver).getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
28 // Code to copy the screenshot in the desired location

29 FileUtils.copyFile(scrFile, new File("C:\\CaptureScreenshot\\

google.jpg"))
30 }
31 }
Q #38) What is Junit?
Junit is a unit testing framework introduced by Apache. Junit is based on Java.
Q #39) What are Junit annotations?
Following are the JUnit Annotations:

 @Test: Annotation lets the system know that the method annotated as @Test is
a test method. There can be multiple test methods in a single test script.
 @Before: Method annotated as @Before lets the system know that this method
shall be executed every time before each of the test methods.
 @After: Method annotated as @After lets the system know that this method shall
be executed every time after each of the test method.
 @BeforeClass: Method annotated as @BeforeClass lets the system know that
this method shall be executed once before any of the test methods.
 @AfterClass: Method annotated as @AfterClass lets the system know that this
method shall be executed once after any of the test methods.
 @Ignore: Method annotated as @Ignore lets the system know that this method
shall not be executed.
Q #40) What is TestNG and how is it better than Junit?
TestNG is an advanced framework designed in a way to leverage the benefits by both
the developers and testers. With the commencement of the frameworks, JUnit gained
enormous popularity across the Java applications, Java developers and Java testers
with remarkably increasing the code quality. Despite being easy to use and
straightforward, JUnit has its own limitations which give rise to the need of bringing
TestNG into the picture. TestNG is an open source framework which is distributed under
the Apache Software License and is readily available for download.
TestNG with WebDriver provides an efficient and effective test result format that can, in
turn, be shared with the stakeholders to have a glimpse on the product’s/application’s
health thereby eliminating the drawback of WebDriver’s incapability to generate test
reports. TestNG has an inbuilt exception handling mechanism which lets the program to
run without terminating unexpectedly.
There are various advantages that make TestNG superior to JUnit. Some of them are:

 Added advance and easy annotations

 Execution patterns can set
 Concurrent execution of test scripts
 Test case dependencies can be set
Q #41) How to set test case priority in TestNG?
Setting Priority in TestNG
Code Snippet
1 package TestNG;
2 import org.testng.annotations.*;
3 public class SettingPriority {
4 @Test(priority=0)
5 public void method1() {
6}

7 @Test(priority=1)
8 public void method2() {
9 }
10 @Test(priority=2)
11 public void method3() {
12 }
13 }
Test Execution Sequence:
1. Method1
2. Method2
3. Method3
Q #42) What is a framework?
The framework is a constructive blend of various guidelines, coding standards, concepts,
processes, practices, project hierarchies, modularity, reporting mechanism, test data
injections etc. to pillar automation testing.

Q #43) What are the advantages of the Automation framework?

The advantage of Test Automation framework
 Reusability of code
 Maximum coverage
 Recovery scenario
 Low-cost maintenance
 Minimal manual intervention
 Easy Reporting
Q #44) What are the different types of frameworks?
Below are the different types of frameworks:
1. Module Based Testing Framework: The framework divides the entire
“Application Under Test” into the number of logical and isolated modules. For
each module, we create a separate and independent test script. Thus, when
these test scripts have taken together builds a larger test script representing
more than one module.
2. Library Architecture Testing Framework: The basic fundamental behind the
framework is to determine the common steps and group them into functions
under a library and call those functions in the test scripts whenever required.
3. Data Driven Testing Framework: Data Driven Testing Framework helps the user
segregate the test script logic and the test data from each other. It lets the user
store the test data into an external database. The data is conventionally stored in
“Key-Value” pairs. Thus, the key can be used to access and populate the data
within the test scripts.
4. Keyword Driven Testing Framework: The Keyword Driven testing framework is
an extension to Data-driven Testing Framework in a sense that it not only
segregates the test data from the scripts, it also keeps the certain set of code
belonging to the test script into an external data file.
5. Hybrid Testing Framework: Hybrid Testing Framework is a combination of
more than one above mentioned frameworks. The best thing about such a setup
is that it leverages the benefits of all kinds of associated frameworks.
6. Behavior Driven Development Framework: Behavior Driven Development
framework allows automation of functional validations in an easily readable and
understandable format to Business Analysts, Developers, Testers, etc.
Q #45) How can I read test data from excels?
Test data can efficiently be read from excel using JXL or POI API. See detailed tutorial
here.
 Q #46) What is the difference between POI and jxl jar?
# JXL jar POI jar

1 JXL supports “.xls” format i.e. binary based format. JXL doesn’t POI jar supports all of these for
support Excel 2007 and “.xlsx” format i.e. XML based format

2 JXL API was last updated in the year 2009 POI is regularly updated and re

3 The JXL documentation is not as comprehensive as that of POI POI has a well prepared and hi
comprehensive documentation

4 JXL API doesn’t support rich text formatting POI API supports rich text form

5 JXL API is faster than POI API POI API is slower than JXL API
Q #47) What is the difference between Selenium and QTP?
Feature Selenium Quick Test Professional (QTP)

Browser Selenium supports almost all the popular QTP supports Internet Explorer, Firefox
Compatibility browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Chrome. QTP only supports Windows
Internet Explorer, Opera etc Operating System

Distribution Selenium is distributed as an open source QTP is distributed as a licensed tool and is
tool and is freely available commercialized

Application Selenium supports testing of only web based QTP supports testing of both the web
under Test applications based application and windows based
application

Object Object Repository needs to be created as a QTP automatically creates and maintains
Repository separate entity Object Repository

Language Selenium supports multiple programming QTP supports only VB Script

Support languages like Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Perl
etc

Vendor Support As Selenium is a free tool, user would not get Users can easily get the vendor’s support
the vendor’s support in troubleshooting in case of any issue
issues
Q #48) Can WebDriver test Mobile applications?
WebDriver cannot test Mobile applications. WebDriver is a web-based testing tool,
therefore applications on the mobile browsers can be tested.

Q #49) Can captcha be automated?

No, captcha and barcode reader cannot be automated.

Q #50) What is Object Repository? How can we create an Object Repository in

Selenium?
Object Repository is a term used to refer to the collection of web elements belonging to
Application Under Test (AUT) along with their locator values. Thus, whenever the
element is required within the script, the locator value can be populated from the Object
Repository. Object Repository is used to store locators in a centralized location instead
of hardcoding them within the scripts.

In Selenium, objects can be stored in an excel sheet which can be populated inside the
script whenever required.

That’s all for now.

Hope in this article you will find answers to most frequently asked Selenium and
WebDriver Interview questions. The answers provided here are also helpful for
understanding the Selenium basics and advanced WebDriver topics.

new WebDriverWait(WebDriverManager.getWebDriver(), waitTime).until((WebDriver

wDriver)