How to use same browser window for automated test using selenium-webdriver (ruby)?

Question

I am automating test cases for a website using selenium-webdriver and cucumber in ruby. I need each feature to run in a particular order and using the same browser window. A

Answer 1

The Before hook is run before each scenario. This is why a new browser is opened each time.

Do the following instead (in the env.rb):

require "selenium-webdriver"

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :ie
accept_next_alert = true
driver.manage.timeouts.implicit_wait = 30
driver.manage.timeouts.script_timeout = 30
verification_errors = []

Before do
  @driver = driver
end

at_exit do
  driver.close
end

In this case, a browser will be opened at the start (before any tests). Then each test will grab that browser and continue using it.

Note: While it is usually okay to re-use the browser across tests. You should be careful about tests that need to be run in a specific order (ie become dependent). Dependent tests can be hard to debug and maintain.

Answer 2

I had a similar problem in creating a spec_helper file. I did the following (simplified for locally-run firefox) for my purposes and it works very, very reliably. RSpec will use the same browser window for all it blocks in your _spec.rb file.

Rspec.configure do |config|
  config.before(:all) do
    @driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
  end

  config.after(:all) do
    @driver.quit
  end
end

If you switch to :each instead of :all, you can use a separate browser instance for each assertion block... again, with :each RSpec will give a new browser instance for each it. Both are useful depending on the circumstance.

Answer 3

As the answers solve the problem but do not answer the question "How to connect to an existing session".

I managed to do this with the following code since it is not officially supported.

# monkey-patch 2 methods
module Selenium
  module WebDriver
    class Driver
      # Be able to set the driver
      def set_bridge_to(b)
        @bridge = b
      end

      # bridge is a private method, simply create a public version
      def public_bridge
        @bridge
      end
    end
  end
end


caps = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.send("chrome")

driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for(
  :remote,
  url: "http://chrome:4444/wd/hub",
  desired_capabilities: caps
)
used_bridge = driver.bridge
driver.get('https://www.google.com')

# opens a new unused chrome window
driver2 = Selenium::WebDriver.for(
  :remote,
  url: "http://chrome:4444/wd/hub",
  desired_capabilities: caps
)

driver2.close() # close unused chrome window
driver2.set_bridge_to(used_bridge)

driver2.title # => "Google"

Sadly this did not test work between 2 rescue jobs, will update this in the future when I made it work for my own use case.