Python Bindings

Introduction

The python bindings for Selenium 2 are now available. The bindings include the full functionality of Selenium 1 and 2 (WebDriver). The package currently supports the Remote, Firefox, Chrome and IE protocols natively.

note : Currently Selenium only supports Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3

If using selenium 1, before attempting to run a test, be sure to download the Selenium Server jar file, and run it via

java -jar selenium-server-standalone.jar

in your terminal/cmd prompt, before attempting to run a test. Selenium 2 however, does not require the jar file.

Installation

Currently, there are two versions of Selenium available for use.

Latest Official Release

The first version, is the latest official release, which is available on the Python Package Index http://python.org/pypi/selenium. To use this version, in your terminal type:

[sudo] easy_install selenium or [sudo] pip install selenium

Development Version

The second version, is the current code from trunk. To use this, checkout the trunk repository at http://code.google.com/p/selenium/source/checkout. After the download is completed, cd to the root of the downloaded directory via terminal/cmd prompt, then cd to the py folder. Perform the following command:

(sudo) ./go py_install.

Upon completion, the package should be installed successfully.

One advantage of using trunk as of writing, is the reorganization of the package. Previously, to initialize a browser you had to perform,

from selenium.firefox.webdriver import WebDriver

driver = WebDriver()

This has been changed, so now all that is required is:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Firefox()

Testing Source

When developing Selenium, it is recommended you run the tests before and after making any changes to the code base. To perform these tests, run

./go //py:firefox_test:run

from the root of your local copy. Other browsers can be tested by changing firefox to the browser you wish to test, for example:

./go //py:chrome_test:run
./go //py:phantomjs_test:run

To rerun a single test method that may have failed, you can do that like this:

./go //py:firefox_test:run method=testShouldExplicitlyWaitForASingleElement

To run as a different version of python (for example if your default is 2.7 and you have 3 installed)

./go test_py pyversion=python3

Usage

Depending on the driver you wish to utilize, importing the module is performed by entering the following in your python shell:

Selenium 1: from selenium import selenium

Selenium 2:

Using the latest official release:

from selenium import webdriver

API Documentation / Viewing Available Functionality

To read the API documentation of the Python Bindings go to the Python bindings API doc page.

Alternatively use your python shell to view all commands available to you, after importing perform:

Selenium 1:

dir(selenium)

Selenium 2:

dir(webdriver)

To view the docstrings (documentation text attached to a function or method), perform

print 'functionname'.__doc__

where functionname is the function you wish to view more information on. For example,

print selenium.open.__doc__

Comparison with Java Bindings

Here is a summary of the major differences between the python and Java bindings.

Function Names

Function names separate compound terms with underscores, rather than using Java's camelCase formatting. For example, in python

title

is the equivalent of

getTitle()

in Java.

Flatter Structures

To reflect pythonic behavior of flat object hierarchies the python bindings e.g.

find_element_by_xpath("//h1")

rather than

findElement(By.xpath("//h1"));

but it does give you the freedom of doing find_element(by=By.XPATH, value='//h1')

Browser Support

All of the browsers supported by the Java implementation of Selenium are available in the Python bindings. For example:

Selenium 1 - Internet Explorer

from selenium import selenium

selenium = selenium("localhost", 4444, "*iexplore", "http://google.com/")
selenium.start()

Selenium 1 - Firefox

from selenium import selenium

selenium = selenium("localhost", 4444, "*firefox", "http://google.com/")
selenium.start()

Selenium 2 - Firefox

Latest Official Release:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Firefox()

Selenium 2 - Chrome

Latest Official Release:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

Selenium 2 - Remote

Latest Official Release:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Remote( browser_name="firefox", platform="any")

Selenium 2 - IE

Latest Official Release:

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Ie()