Using Selenium IDE with random values

Question

Is it possible to create Selenium tests using the Firefox plugin that use randomly generated values to help do regression tests?

The full story: I w

Answer 1

One more solution, which I've copied and pasted into hundreds of tests :

<tr>
    <td>store</td>
    <td>javascript{var myDate = new Date(); myDate.getFullYear()+&quot;-&quot;+(myDate.getMonth()+1)+&quot;-&quot;+myDate.getDate()+&quot;-&quot;+myDate.getHours()+myDate.getMinutes()+myDate.getSeconds()+myDate.getMilliseconds();}</td>
    <td>S_Unique</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>store</td>
    <td>Selenium Test InternalRefID-${S_Unique}</td>
    <td>UniqueInternalRefID</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>store</td>
    <td>Selenium Test Title-${S_Unique}</td>
    <td>UniqueTitle</td>
</tr>
<tr>
    <td>store</td>
    <td>SeleniumEmail-${G_Unique}@myURL.com</td>
    <td>UniqueEmailAddress</td>
</tr>

Each test suite begins by setting a series of variables (if it's a big suite, use a separate file like Set_Variables.html). Those variables can then be used throughout your suite to set, test, and delete test data. And since the variables use the date rather than a random number, you can debug your test suite by looking for the objects which share a date.

Answer 2

While making sense of RajendraChary's post above, I spent some time writing a new Selenium IDE extension.

My extension will let the user populate a variable with lorem ipsum text. There are a number of configurable options and it's turned into a nice little command. You can do things like "5 words|wordcaps|nomarks" to generate 5 lorem ipsum words, all capitalized, without punctuation.

I've thoroughly explained installation and usage as well as provided the full codebase here

If you take a peek at the code you'll get an idea of how to build similar functionality.

Answer 3

(Based on Thilo answer) You can mix literals and random numbers like this:

javascript{"joe+" + Math.floor(Math.random()*11111) + "@gmail.com";}

Gmail makes possible that automatically everything that use aliases, for example, joe+testing@gmail.com will go to your address joe@gmail.com

Multiplying *11111 to give you more random values than 1 to 9 (in Thilo example)

Answer 4

Math.random may be "good enough" but, in practice, the Random class is often preferable to Math.random(). Using Math.random , the numbers you get may not actually be completely random. The book "Effective Java Second Edition" covers this in Item #47.

Answer 5

A one-liner for randomly choosing from a small set of alternatives:

javascript{['brie','cheddar','swiss'][Math.floor(Math.random()*3)]}

Answer 6

I made a little improvment to the function generateRandomString. When FF crashes, it's good to be able to use the same random number again.

Basically, it will ask you to enter a string yourself. If you don't enter anything, it will generate it.

function generateRandomString( length, chars ) { var string=prompt("Please today's random string",''); if (string == '') {for ( var i = 0 ; i < length ; i++ ) string += chars[ Math.floor( Math.random() * chars.length ) ]; return string;} else { return string;} }