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Automated driver management for Selenium WebDriver

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Abstract

Selenium WebDriver is a framework used to control web browsers automatically. It provides a cross-browser Application Programming Interface (API) for different languages (e.g., Java, Python, or JavaScript) that allows automatic navigation, user impersonation, and verification of web applications. Internally, Selenium WebDriver makes use of the native automation support of each browser. Hence, a platform-dependent binary file (the so-called driver) must be placed between the Selenium WebDriver script and the browser to support this native communication. The management (i.e., download, setup, and maintenance) of these drivers is cumbersome for practitioners. This paper provides a complete methodology to automate this management process. Particularly, we present WebDriverManager, the reference tool implementing this methodology. WebDriverManager provides different execution methods: as a Java dependency, as a Command-Line Interface (CLI) tool, as a server, as a Docker container, and as a Java agent. To provide empirical validation of the proposed approach, we surveyed the WebDriverManager users. The aim of this study is twofold. First, we assessed the extent to which WebDriverManager is adopted and used. Second, we evaluated the WebDriverManager API following Clarke’s usability dimensions. A total of 148 participants worldwide completed this survey in 2020. The results show a remarkable assessment of the automation capabilities and API usability of WebDriverManager by Java users, but a scarce adoption for other languages.

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Notes

  1. https://www.selenium.dev/

  2. https://chromedriver.chromium.org/

  3. https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/

  4. https://chromedevtools.github.io/devtools-protocol/

  5. https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/testing/marionette/

  6. https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/en/webdriver/driver_requirements/

  7. https://chromedriver.chromium.org/downloads

  8. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2019-01-01%202020-12-31&q=this%20version%20of%20chromedriver%20only%20supports%20Chrome%20version

  9. https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=this+version+of+chromedriver+only+supports+Chrome+version

  10. https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE

  11. https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE_80

  12. https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  13. https://github.com/bonigarcia/webdrivermanager

  14. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bonigarcia/webdrivermanager/master/src/main/resources/versions.properties

  15. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bonigarcia/webdrivermanager/master/src/main/resources/commands.properties

  16. https://search.maven.org/artifact/io.github.bonigarcia/webdrivermanager

  17. https://github.com/bonigarcia/webdrivermanager/releases

  18. https://hub.docker.com/repository/docker/bonigarcia/webdrivermanager

  19. https://github.com/bonigarcia/wdm-agent-example

  20. https://appium.io/

  21. https://www.selenium.dev/documentation/en/grid/

  22. https://www.jamovi.org/

  23. https://oss.sonatype.org/

  24. https://github.com/bonigarcia/webdrivermanager/network/dependents

  25. https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/io.github.bonigarcia/webdrivermanager

  26. https://selenide.org/

  27. https://serenity-bdd.info/

  28. https://javalin.io/

  29. https://www.npmjs.com/package/webdriver-manager

  30. https://pypi.org/project/webdriver-manager/

  31. https://github.com/titusfortner/webdrivers

  32. https://github.com/rosolko/WebDriverManager.Net

  33. https://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/

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Acknowledgements

This work has been been supported in part by the “Análisis en tiempo Real de sensores sociALes y EStimación de recursos para transporte multimodal basada en aprendizaje profundo” project (MaGIST-RALES), funded by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI, doi 10.13039/501100011033) under grant PID2019-105221RB-C44. This work also received partial support from FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades - Agencia Estatal de Investigación through project Smartlet (TIN2017-85179-C3-1-R), and from the eMadrid Network, which is funded by the Madrid Regional Government (Comunidad de Madrid) with grant No. S2018/TCS-4307.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Avenida de la Universidad 30, 28911, Leganés, Spain

    Boni García, Mario Munoz-Organero, Carlos Alario-Hoyos & Carlos Delgado Kloos

Authors
  1. Boni García
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  2. Mario Munoz-Organero
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  3. Carlos Alario-Hoyos
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  4. Carlos Delgado Kloos
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Boni García.

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Communicated by: Shin Yoo

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Appendix A: WebDriverManager API

Appendix A: WebDriverManager API

The following table summarizes the complete WebDriverManager Java API together with the equivalent configuration key. Footnote 33

Method

Description

Configuration key

driverVersion (String)

Particular driver version

wdm.chromeDriverVersion, wdm.operaDriverVersion, wdm.edgeDriverVersion, wdm.phantomjsDriverVersion, wdm.geckoDriverVersion, wdm.chromiumDriverVersion, wdm.internetExplorerDriverVersion

browserVersion (String)

Particular browser version

wdm.chromeVersion, wdm.operaVersion, wdm.edgeVersion, wdm.firefoxVersion, wdm.chromiumVersion

cachePath(String)

Driver cache path

wdm.cachePath

resolution- CachePath(String)

Resolution cache path

wdm.resolutionCachePath

forceDownload()

Force downloading the driver (even if it is already available in the driver cache)

wdm.forceDownload

useBetaVersions()

Download also beta versions

wdm.useBetaVersions

architecture(Arch)

Force using a given architecture (i.e., 32-bit or 64-bit)

wdm.architecture

arch32()

Force using 32-bit architecture

wdm.architecture=32

arch64()

Force using 64-bit architecture

wdm.architecture=64

operatingSystem(OS)

Force using a given operating system (WIN, MAC, or LINUX)

wdm.os

win()

Force using Windows as operating system

wdm.os=WIN

linux()

Force using Linux as operating system

wdm.os=LINUX

mac()

Force using Mac OS as operating system

wdm.os=MAC

ignoreVersions (String...)

Ignore some driver versions

wdm.ignoreVersions

useMirror()

Use driver repository mirror. Available for chromedriver, geckodriver, operadriver, and phantomjs

wdm.useMirror

driverRepositoryUrl(URL)

URL of the driver repositories

wdm.chromeDriverUrl, wdm.operaDriverUrl, wdm.edgeDriverUrl, wdm.phantomjsDriverUrl, wdm.geckoDriverUrl, wdm.internetExplorerDriverUrl,

proxy(String)

Use an HTTP proxy for the Internet connection (notation my.http.proxy:1234 or username:password@my. http.proxy:1234)

wdm.proxy

proxyUser(String)

Username for the HTTP proxy

wdm.proxyUser

proxyPass(String)

Password for HTTP proxy

wdm.proxyPass

localRepository User(String)

Username for a local repository

wdm.proxyUser

localRepository Password(String)

Password for a local repository

wdm.proxyPass

gitHubToken Name(String)

Token name for authenticated requests in GitHub

wdm.gitHubTokenName

gitHubToken Secret(String)

Secret for authenticated requests in GitHub

wdm.gitHubTokenSecret

timeout(int)

Timeout (in seconds) to connect and download drivers from repositories

wdm.timeout

properties(String)

Properties file for internal configuration values

wdm.properties

avoidExport()

Avoid exporting JVM properties with the driver path (used by default in CLI)

wdm.avoidExport

avoidOutputTree()

Avoid creating tree structure in driver cache (used by default in CLI)

wdm.avoidOutputTree

avoidFallback()

Disable the fallback mechanism in the resolution algorithm

wdm.avoidFallback

avoidBrowser Detection()

Disable the dynamic browser version detection mechanism

wdm.avoidBrowserDetection

avoidReadRelease FromRepository()

Disable checking LATEST_RELEASE info from repositories (for Chrome and Edge)

wdm.avoid ReadRelease FromRepository

browserVersionDetectionCommand(String)

Custom command for browser version detection

wdm.browserVersionDetectionCommand

browserVersionDetectionRegex(String)

Regular expression used to extract browser version

wdm.browserVersionDetectionRegex

ttl(int)

TTL (in seconds) for driver versions in the resolution cache

wdm.ttl

ttlBrowsers(int)

TTL (in seconds) for browser versions in the resolution cache

wdm.ttlForBrowsers

useLocalVersionsPropertiesFirst()

Disable the usage of the online versions database (use the local copy instead)

wdm.versionsPropertiesOnlineFirst

useLocalCommandsPropertiesFirst()

Disable the usage of the online commands database (use the local copy instead)

wdm.commandsPropertiesOnlineFirst

versionsPropertiesUrl(URL)

URL of the the online versions database (version.properties)

wdm.versionsPropertiesUrl

commandsPropertiesUrl(URL)

URL of the the online commands database (commands.properties)

wdm.commandsPropertiesUrl

clearResolutionCache()

Remove resolution cache (browser and driver versions previously resolved)

wdm.clearResolutionCache

clearDriverCache()

Remove driver cache (drivers previously resolved)

wdm.clearDriverCache

exportParameter(String)

Java property name used to export the driver path (e.g., webdriver. chrome.driver for Chrome or webdriver.gecko. driver for Firefox)

wdm.chromeDriverExport, wdm.geckoDriverExport, wdm.edgeDriverExport, wdm.operaDriverExport, wdm.phantomjsDriverExport, wdm.internetExplorerDriverExport

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García, B., Munoz-Organero, M., Alario-Hoyos, C. et al. Automated driver management for Selenium WebDriver. Empir Software Eng 26, 107 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-021-09975-3

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