Web automation using .NET

Question

I am a very newbie programmer. Does anyone of you know how to do Web automation with C#? Basically, I just want auto implement some simple action on the web. Af

Answer 1

You could use Selenium WebDriver.

A quick code sample below:

using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Firefox;

// Requires reference to WebDriver.Support.dll
using OpenQA.Selenium.Support.UI;

class GoogleSuggest
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Create a new instance of the Firefox driver.
        // Note that it is wrapped in a using clause so that the browser is closed 
        // and the webdriver is disposed (even in the face of exceptions).

        // Also note that the remainder of the code relies on the interface, 
        // not the implementation.

        // Further note that other drivers (InternetExplorerDriver,
        // ChromeDriver, etc.) will require further configuration 
        // before this example will work. See the wiki pages for the
        // individual drivers at http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki
        // for further information.
        using (IWebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver())
        {
            //Notice navigation is slightly different than the Java version
            //This is because 'get' is a keyword in C#
            driver.Navigate().GoToUrl("http://www.google.com/");

            // Find the text input element by its name
            IWebElement query = driver.FindElement(By.Name("q"));

            // Enter something to search for
            query.SendKeys("Cheese");

            // Now submit the form. WebDriver will find the form for us from the element
            query.Submit();

            // Google's search is rendered dynamically with JavaScript.
            // Wait for the page to load, timeout after 10 seconds
            var wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
            wait.Until(d => d.Title.StartsWith("cheese", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));

            // Should see: "Cheese - Google Search" (for an English locale)
            Console.WriteLine("Page title is: " + driver.Title);
        }
    }
}

The great thing (among others) about this approach is that you can easily switch the underlying browser implementations, just by specifying a different IWebDriver, like FirefoxDriver, InternetExplorerDriver, ChromeDriver, etc. This also means you can write 1 test and run it on multiple IWebDriver implementations, thus testing how the page works when viewed in Firefox, Chrome, IE, etc. People working in QA sector often use Selenium to write automated web page tests.