Like many other testing tools, WebTest uses Google‘s website for simple code examples. It has the advantage to be a well known website, pretty fast and with simple code.
For some time WebTest users started to report that even simple examples from the demo tests available when creating a new project failed due to JS errors like this:
As this test used to work, this means that Google’s start page isn’t so simple any more that it used to be. It was predictable that this page would change one day but it is quite embarrassing as we use this kind of tests to show how easy and powerful WebTest is even for sites using a lot of JS stuff.
HtmlUnit‘s JS support is quite good (and improved continuously), but of course not (yet 😉 ) as good as the one of “real” browsers, therefore I’ve started to search for the cause of the problem in HtmlUnit, looking for missing/incorrect implementation of some JS functionalities. At the end I’ve found that the problem occurred only when setting directly the value attribute of the field rather than calling the type(...) method on it because keypress handlers were being used. This means that WebTest should probably use type(...) rather than setting the field’s value directly.
But this means as well that Google’s home page relies on the keypress handlers and that the JavaScript code doesn’t work correctly if these handlers are not called like in following scenario:
- – go to http://www.google.com/ncr (to be sure to have the English version of the page)
- – right mouse click in the search field to paste some value to search for
- – click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button
The results are quite similar to the JS error obtained by WebTest, no matter if you use Firefox or Internet Explorer (perhaps does it work correctly with Chrome 😉 ):
Rather painful for Google than for WebTest!
OK, this error is nothing dramatical but for an Internet giant like Google that has plenty of talented engineers (and …, and…, and …. You perhaps know better than I what the web means for Google), I find quite painful to have such an error on its main page!
The error scenario is not particularly complicated and such a case should surely be covered by automated tests. Perhaps is it a question of inadequate tools? Google seems to use intensively Selenium 😉 .
Concerning WebTest, I’ll start the discussion on the mailing list to decide what is the best way to follow: setting directly the field value, typing it, or having both possibilities.
Marc Guillemot's blog 