Selenium Testing Interview Questions And Answers.

Introduction

Selenium allows developers and testers to automate the testing of web applications across different browsers and platforms. Selenium allows you to create test scripts in different languages like Ruby, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, JavaScript, and C#, among others. One of the most essential tools in QA testing is the introduction of Selenium, a powerful automated tool. Cracking the selenium interview questions is the key to getting hold of your dream job! If you are appearing for jobs as a selenium tester, this blog covers all the basic interview questions and answers one needs to know. 

Q1. What is Selenium?

Ans- Selenium is an open-source umbrella project for various tools and libraries to support browser automation. It provides a playback tool for authoring functional tests across most modern web browsers without learning a test scripting language. This interface provides a language-neutral wire protocol that has been implemented for various platforms such as:

Q2. What is a Locator? How Can You Find Elements in Selenium?

Ans- Selenium uses locators to find and match the elements of a web page that it needs to interact with. Different types of Selenium locators are used for various web elements on a web page:

• ID
• Name
• Class
• Partial Link
• XPath
• CSS Selector
• Link Text

Learn more about selenium IDE commands and locators from available resources.

Q3. How Many Test Types Are Supported By Selenium?

Ans- Selenium can be used to test web-based applications.

The test types supported by Selenium are:

• Functional testing: It verifies if each function of a software application performs following specific requirements. This testing primarily involves black-box testing, and it is not concerned with the application's source code.

• Regression testing is nothing but a full or partial selection of the already executed test cases to be re-executed to ensure the existing functionalities work fine.

 

Q4. What Are The Actions in Selenium Testing?

Ans- The Actions class gives us a way of describing how a user would interact with a web page/elements. Using an instance of this class, you can describe a series of actions, such as clicking, double-clicking, dragging, pressing keys, etc. Once these actions are described, to carry the actions out, you must call must build the actions (.Build()) and then instruct them to be performed (.Perform()). So, we must describe, build, and perform. Gain more in-depth knowledge from verified sources on what action class is and how to use it. 

Q5. What are The Different Selenium Suite Components?

Ans- Selenium is not just a single tool or utility but a package of several testing tools, and that’s why it’s called Selenium Suite. Also, learn about the architecture of selenium and be an expert in this subject. Each of these tools caters to different testing and testing environments. It comprises four major components as follows:

1. Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE):

It is distributed as a Firefox plugin that acts as a recording and playback tool. It is developed to speed up the creation of automation scripts.

2. Selenium Remote Control (RC):

Selenium Remote Control is a server with which the user can create the Test cases in any desired programming language. The commands in the test scripts are accepted by the server and sent to the browsers as the Selenium core Javascript commands to maintain the browser behavior accordingly.

3. Selenium Web driver:

Selenium Web Driver is a programming interface to create and test cases. It provides a way to act on various web elements. This Web driver does not require another server, unlike Selenium Remote Control.

4. Selenium Grid:

The Selenium Grid simultaneously distributes the commands to the different machines. It paves the way for the parallel execution of the test cases in different browsers and environments. It achieves concurrency and integrity in the Test Suite Execution.

Q6. What is The Difference Between Selenium 3.0 and Selenium 2.0?

Ans- Selenium 2.0 represents the merger of the Original Selenium project with the Web Driver project. The Selenium RC was deprecated but was used for backward compatibility.

Selenium 3.0, often called an extension of Selenium 2.0, is inherently backward compatible with increased stability and several bug fixes and does not involve the Selenium RC at all.

Q7. What Do You Mean by Selenese?

Ans- Selenese, called the Selenium command, is the command set that runs your test cases. For example, open (URL) is a Selenium command that opens the specified URL in the specific browser. There are also different selenium web driver commands that one can explore. A test script is the sequence of all these commands put together. There are three types of Selenese. They are,

• Actions: We can use it to perform interactions and operations on the target elements
• Accessors: These are used for storing the values in the variables.
• Assertions: These can be used as checkpoints to keep track of the sequential flow of commands.

Q8. What Type of Tests Does Selenium Support?

Ans- Selenium can be used for these types of tests:

• Functional testing: All the following testing types are categories of functional testing, which tests that an application functions according to the business requirements.
• Regression testing: This tests that there are no side effects or bugs when new code is introduced into the application.
• Smoke testing: This tests that the critical parts of the app function correctly.
• Sanity testing: This tests that specific parts of the app function correctly in detail after a code change.
• UI testing: This tests that the graphical elements of the application are correctly displayed.
• Database testing: This tests that the data displayed in the app is in sync with the data in the database.
• Cross-browser testing: This tests that the application functions correctly and looks the same across different browsers.

Q9. What Are Some of The Technical Challenges With Selenium?

Ans- When discussing technical challenges associated with Selenium, you should work on some examples from your past work. You can also highlight how you dealt with these challenges, which gives the hiring team a glimpse into your critical thinking process. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Selenium testing only works with web-based applications and requires third-party tools to test desktop and mobile apps.
• Selenium supports capturing images or screenshots but requires third-party tools for comparing images.
• Selenium doesn’t have built-in reporting tools or test management. For these, you have to use third-party tools.
• While some tests can be written without programming knowledge using Selenium IDE, most will require you to know a programming language to customize them.

Q10. How Does Selenium WebDriver Work?

Ans- Let's look at how WebDriver works in more detail:

1. Initializing the driver: To start using WebDriver, you must first initialize the driver for the specific browser you need to automate.

You can download the browser-specific driver executable file from the official vendor website and add it to the project's classpath. Once the driver has been added, we can use the specified browser driver to create an instance of the WebDriver in our test script, as seen below.

2. Interacting with the webpage: After initializing the driver, you can now interact with the webpage using WebDriver methods. WebDriver includes numerous handy methods, such as findElement(), click(), sendKeys(), and navigate(), that allow us to discover and interact with elements on the page, imitate user actions, and navigate across pages.

For example, assume that we wish to enter some text into a text field on a website. To imitate typing, we can utilize the sendKeys() method:

In this example, we first use the By.name() method to locate the search field element on the page, and then we use the sendKeys() method to simulate typing the text "Selenium WebDriver" into the search field.

3. Executing the test: Once you have written your script using WebDriver, you can execute the test using your chosen framework, such as JUnit or TestNG. This testing framework will run the test script and generate a test report with the test results.

4. Handling exceptions: WebDriver can throw various exceptions during test execution, such as TimeoutException, NoSuchElementException, or StaleElementReferenceException. It's crucial to handle these exceptions correctly in your test script to avoid failures and ensure that your tests are reliable and accurate. Check out selenium tutorials to get an in-depth knowledge of the topic.

Q11. What Are The Programming Languages Supported by Selenium?

Ans- Selenium works with a wide range of programming languages. These are the popular language which is given below :

• Java: One of the most widely used languages for Selenium automation.
• Python: A popular language for Selenium automation is Python.
• C#: With the help of the Selenium WebDriver.NET bindings, C#, a popular language for automating tests on Windows, provides native support for Selenium.
• Ruby: Ruby is a flexible, open-source, and simple-to-read programming language. It contains a Selenium library called Capybara that gives web application testing a high-level interface.
• [removed] Selenium WebdriverJS and Node.js frequently use JavaScript.
• PHP: Despite Selenium's lack of native support for PHP, third-party libraries and frameworks like Codeception and Behat can be used to automate Selenium tests using PHP.

The choice of programming language for Selenium test development depends on personal preference, project requirements, and existing team expertise. It has a range of supported languages, which makes it accessible to developers with different language backgrounds and preferences. Check out the most popular programming languages currently in the market, their specialization, and how you can further benefit your career through learning these programming languages.

Q12. What is The Importance of XPATH in Selenium?

Ans- XPath in Selenium is essential to Selenium automation as it provides a powerful mechanism for locating elements on a web page. XPath is a language used for selecting nodes from an XML or HTML document, and it allows Selenium to identify the exact location of an element on a webpage. XPath expressions can locate any element on the webpage, including buttons, links, input fields, etc.

Here are some of the reasons why XPath is important in Selenium automation:

• Precise element identification: XPath expressions allow Selenium to locate elements on the page precisely, even when multiple elements have similar attributes. This makes it easier to automate web applications with complex user interfaces and improves the accuracy of test results.
• Flexibility: XPath expressions provide a flexible way to locate elements on a page, as they can be used to search for elements based on their text content, attributes, position on the page, and other factors. This flexibility makes it easier to adapt test scripts to changes in the application under test.
• Cross-browser compatibility: XPath is supported by all modern web browsers. Selenium can use XPath expressions to locate elements on any website, regardless of the browser used.
• Powerful selection options: XPath provides powerful selection options, such as selecting elements based on their ancestors, descendants, siblings, etc. This allows Selenium to locate elements based on their relationship to other elements on the page.

It is a crucial component of Selenium automation since it offers an accurate and adaptable approach to locating webpage items. Selenium can use XPath to locate any element on the page, even in intricate user interfaces, and to adapt to modifications made to the application being tested. Learn more about what Xpath is in selenium and how to write Xpath selenium. 

Q13. How Many Parameters Do Selenium Commands Have At a Minimum?

Ans- There are four parameters that you must pass in Selenium. They are as follows,

• Host: We can bind the Selenium to a specific IP address instead of a Local host in our local machine.
• Port Number: We can specify the port number, too, i.e., TCP/IP port to connect the Selenium tests to the Grid hub. We need to ensure that no other application with the same port number is up in any other location within the same machine.
• Browser: The browser in which the selenium scripts have to be executed.
• URL: The application URL triggers the test cases within that.

Q14. What Types of Exceptions Can You Expect in Selenium?

Ans- This is a question that would best be answered by referencing specific examples, a few exceptions that could be addressed include: 

• TimeoutException: This is thrown when a command isn’t completed in a specific time.
• NoSuchElementException: This is thrown when an element is not found on the web page.
• ElementNotVisibleException: This is thrown when an element is not visible on the web page.
• StaleElementException: This is thrown when an element is deleted or no longer attached to the DOM.
• JavascriptException: This is thrown when executing JavaScript supplied by the user.

Q15. What is a Test Suite in Selenium?

Ans- A test suite is a collection of test cases collected together and executed as a single unit in Selenium. The goal of developing a test suite is to group various connected test cases and cover diverse scenarios of the application being tested, making them easier to manage and organize. The widely used test frameworks TestNG, JUnit, and NUnit can be used to build a test suite with Selenium. These frameworks include functionality for managing test suites, such as grouping test cases, parallelizing execution, creating dependencies between test cases, and generating test results.

The use of Selenium test suites provides several advantages, including increasing the effectiveness of the testing procedure by enabling multiple tests to be done simultaneously and reducing the time and effort needed to run individual tests independently.

Conclusion

Our industry experts have curated all the selenium interview questions and answers with certain pieces of code explaining how to answer the questions for an impactful performance.  Intrigued on journey as a test automation engineer and add another shining star to your selenium interview, here’s a certification course that will be useful. Check out Janbask Traning’s Selenium training course. This training will improve testing skills with a new-age Selenium training and certification course. Join this Selenium training and get great exposure to the best industry-wide practices and methodologies.