How to change the language of a WebDriver?

Question

I want to execute my Selenium tests in different languages. Is it possible to change the language of an existing WebDriver at runtime or do I have to recreate the browser in

Answer 1

I ended up creating a WebDriverPool that creates one instance for every combination of WebDriver type (e.g. FirefoxDriver.class) and Locale (e.g. en_US). Maybe this is usful for someone.

public class WebDriverPool {

  private Map drivers = new HashMap();
  private List driversInUse = new ArrayList();

  public WebDriverPool() {
    Runtime.getRuntime().addShutdownHook(new Thread(){
      @Override
      public void run(){
        for (WebDriver driver : drivers.values())
          driver.close();

        if (!driversInUse.isEmpty())
          throw new IllegalStateException("There are still drivers in use, did someone forget to return it? (size: " + driversInUse.size() + ")");
      }
    });
  }

  private WebDriver createFirefoxDriver(Locale locale){
    FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
    profile.setPreference("intl.accept_languages", formatLocale(locale));
    return new FirefoxDriver(profile);
  }

  private String formatLocale(Locale locale) {
    return locale.getCountry().length() == 0
      ? locale.getLanguage()
      : locale.getLanguage() + "-" + locale.getCountry().toLowerCase();
  }

  /**
   * @param clazz
   * @param locale
   * @return web driver which can be new or recycled
   */
  public synchronized WebDriver getWebDriver(Class clazz, Locale locale){

    String key = clazz.getName() + "-" + locale;

    if(!drivers.containsKey(key)){

      if(clazz == FirefoxDriver.class){
        drivers.put(key, createFirefoxDriver(locale));
      }

      // TODO create other drivers here ...

      // else if(clazz == ChromeDriver.class){
      //     drivers.put(key, createChromeDriver(locale));
      // }

      else{
        throw new IllegalArgumentException(clazz.getName() + " not supported yet!");
      }
    }

    WebDriver driver = drivers.get(key);

    if(driversInUse.contains(driver))
      throw new IllegalStateException("This driver is already in use. Did someone forgot to return it?");

    driversInUse.add(driver);
    return driver;
  }

  public synchronized void returnWebDriver(WebDriver driver){
    driversInUse.remove(driver);
  }
}