Selenium: How to handle Stale Element Exception error

Common Causes

A stale element reference exception is thrown in one of two cases:

1. The element has been deleted entirely or element/page  has been refreshed
2. The element is no longer attached to the DOM.

Solution

1. The most simple solution is to use the Java PageFactory, this will create a proxy WebElement that will find the element every time you use it (There is a slim change that the element will be released in the couple of milliseconds between it being found and you performing an action on it, in this case it is suggested to use an explicit wait to wait for the element to become stale before finding it again).
2. Use try catch to handle this exception and reload the element in catch block.
3. Add a short sleep between FindElement & action method..

Cucumber vs TestNG : Which is better?

I have been a long time user of TestNG.  Few months back, I started exploring about Cucumber. It was a wish from my client to create automation framework using Cucumber. I searched on web & found many blogs on Cucumber & its implementation. I started with assumption that Cucumber will replace TestNG. After working for few months, I came to following conclusion they are as follows -

Cucumber

TestNG

Cucumber is a collaboration tool, which lets non-technical people write executable specifications. Those executable specifications test your app from the outside - like a black box. Cucumber is not meant to be used as a unit testing tool.  It allows to write automated acceptance tests, functional requirements and software documentation into one format that would be understandable by non-technical people as well as testing tools You can implement your tests using the same language you use to discuss them with the business.  Cucumber adds the overhead of plain English (or other native language) to executable code conversion Good for acceptance testing

TestNG are unit testing tools. They are great for testing individual classes, but not great for executable specifications that are readable (and writeable) by non-technical people. It facilitates to test individual classes.  You can group tests using tags.  TestNG supports a lot of complicated practices like priorities, grouping, listener etc.   Useful when you have to automate large number of test case

How to Verify Broken Links using Selenium WebDriver

This program reads all link from a web page, sends open connection request to URL, checks for response code. Based on response code, broken link is identified & get printed on console.

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.List;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;
public class Links_Broken {

    @Test
      public void saveAllLinks(){
          FirefoxDriver firefoxDriver = new FirefoxDriver(); //Starts Firefox browser
                  
          firefoxDriver.navigate().to("http://google.co.in"); //opens Web Page
               
           List <WebElement>linksList = firefoxDriver.findElements(By.tagName("a")); // finds link  elements & stores in a list
//traverse each link from collection
          for(WebElement linkElement: linksList){
              String link =linkElement.getAttribute("href");
              if(link!=null){
                verifyLinkActive(link);
              }
          }
          firefoxDriver.quit(); // close Firefox browser
      }
          
      /**
       * This method verifies that link is active
       * @param link - link(URL)
       * @return - true/false
       */
       public void verifyLinkActive(String linkUrl){
          try {
             URL url = new URL(linkUrl);
             HttpURLConnection httpURLConnect=(HttpURLConnection)url.openConnection();
             httpURLConnect.setConnectTimeout(3000);
             httpURLConnect.connect();
             if(httpURLConnect.getResponseCode()==200){
                 System.out.println(linkUrl+" - "+httpURLConnect.getResponseMessage());
              }
            if(httpURLConnect.getResponseCode()==HttpURLConnection.HTTP_NOT_FOUND)  
             {
                 System.out.println(linkUrl+" - "+httpURLConnect.getResponseMessage() + " - "+                  HttpURLConnection.HTTP_NOT_FOUND);
              }
          } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
              e.printStackTrace();
          } catch (IOException e) {
              e.printStackTrace();
          } catch (Exception e) {
              e.printStackTrace();
          }
      }
}

Working with Selenium WebDriver and Cucumber without Maven

Download jar files

List of jar file needed to configure Cucumber is as follows -

1.       cucumber-core-1.1.5.jar

2.       cucumber-html-0.2.3.jar

3.       cucumber-java-1.1.5.jar

4.       cucumber-junit-1.1.5.jar

5.       cucumber-jvm-deps-1.0.3.jar

6.       gherkin-2.12.2.jar

7.       hamcrest-core-1.3.jar

8.       jchronic-0.2.6.jar

9.       Junit-4.11.jar

10.     Selenium-server-standalone-2.39.0.jar

Note - If you already have above listed jar file, you may skip Download jar file step

Create Cucumber Project in Eclipse

1. Go to [File -> New -> Java Project]

2. Enter project name in [Project Name] field

3. Click on [Finish] button

4. Delete [src ] folder of this project

5. [Right click on Project folder] & select [Source Folder]

6. Enter value [src/test/resources] in [Folder Name] field

7. Click on [Finish] button

8. [Right click on Project folder] & select [Source Folder]

9. Enter value [src/test/java] in [Folder Name] field

10. Click on [Finish] button

11. [Right click on Project folder] & select [Source Folder]

12. Enter value [src/main/java] in [Folder Name] field

13. Click on [Finish] button

14.  Add above downloaded jar file into Build path of your Selenium Project.

Java convert string to int value

Java provides two method parseInt() and valueOf() method to convert string into integer. Below example shows the usage of two methods to convert string to integer.

public class StringtoNumber {

public static void main(String[] args) {
String String1 = "000456";
  try{
  // using Integer.parseInt method
       int intvalue = Integer.parseInt(String1);
       System.out.println("With parseInt method, intvalue = " + intvalue );
        } catch(NumberFormatException e) {
        System.err.println("NumberFormatException in parseInt, "+ e.getMessage());
        }
         
        try{
        // using Integer.valueOf method
             int intvalue = Integer.valueOf(String1);
             System.out.println("With valueOf method, intvalue = " + intvalue );
             
          } catch(NumberFormatException e) {
              System.err.println("NumberFormatException in valueOf, "+ e.getMessage());
        }
     }
}

Output -
      With parseInt method, intvalue = 456

      With valueOf method, intvalue = 456

Note - Catch section gets executed in case, Java fails to convert string to integer.