How to Upload and Validate files using Selenium for Java Apps!

You've probably heard of Selenium WebDriver, the widely popular browser automation library right? Did you know that it has the ability to allow users to simulate a file upload event? If not, keep reading and you'll soon find out how to automate the file upload feature along with how to validate image files and non-image files using Selenium for Java applications!

Figure 1: Upload a file in Selenium!

Setup

For this short tutorial we'll be using the following example Java application hosted on GitHub: Java Selenium Examples

Start by cloning the project and opening it up in Eclipse or Intellij IDEA. I'll be using Eclipse for this tutorial.

Note: If you want to follow along with a different Java application feel free to do so.

Setting up environmental variables

If you're using Eclipse, make sure to following these steps so that the paths to your local installations of geekodriver and firefox.bin are set:

Navigate to the Run Configurations page via Run -> Run Configurations
Select the JUnit configuration that you plan to use in running the tests
Navigate to the Environment tab
Click on Add and enter the following key/value pairs:
- FIREFOX_PATH: Your local path to your firefox executable file. For example it should look like the following if you're using Windows: C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe
- GEEKODRIVER_PATH: Your local path to your geckodriver executable file. Here's what a Windows path should look like: C:\\..\\geckodriver\\geckodriver.exe
- IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH: Your local path to any image file(files with the extention .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .svg, etc) that we can use for testing the image file upload functionality detailed further along this tutorial
- NON_IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH: Your local path to any non-image files that we can use of testing the non-image file upload functionality detailed further along in this tutorial
- IMAGE_FILE_NAME: The name of the same image file you referenced in the IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH environment variable. For example: if your IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH variable is set to C:\\bob\\image1.png then IMAGE_FILE_NAME should be set to image1.png
- NON_IMAGE_FILE_NAME: The name of the same image file you referenced in the NON_IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH environment variable. For example: if your NON_IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH variable is set to C:\\bob\\non-image1.png then NON_IMAGE_FILE_NAME should be set to non-image1.png
Click Apply to save changes

Testing

Let's navigate to the src.com.codinginformer.test.SeleniumUploadFile class and go through its methods, starting with the @Before method:

    @Before
    public void initFirefox() {
        Properties properties = new Properties();
        System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver", System.getenv("GEEKODRIVER_PATH"));
        System.setProperty("webdriver.firefox.bin", System.getenv("FIREFOX_PATH"));
        WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
    }

The above method establishes properties for geckodriver. It needs the local geckodriver executable file path set to the webdriver.gecko.driver property along with the firefox executable file set to wherever your local firefox executable file resides
Finally, we instantiate the FirefoxDriver() class to the driver variable

Next, let's cover the uploadImageFile() method:

    @Test
    public void uploadImageFile() {
            String baseUrl = "https://selenium-testing-website.herokuapp.com/upload";

            WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

            driver.get(baseUrl);
            WebElement uploadElement = driver.findElement(By.id("file-upload"));


            uploadElement.sendKeys(System.getenv("IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH"));


            driver.findElement(By.id("file-submit")).click();

            driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

            WebElement javaLogo = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//img[@src='/uploads/" + System.getenv("IMAGE_FILE_NAME") + "']"));

            Assert.assertEquals(javaLogo.getAttribute("src"), "https://selenium-testing-website.herokuapp.com/uploads/" + System.getenv("IMAGE_FILE_NAME"));
    }

Here is an explanation for the above test:

driver.get(baseUrl);: The get() method is used to launch a new browser session to the URL specified. This URL is specifically picked out because it contains a file upload form that we'll use for this tutorial
WebElement uploadElement = driver.findElement(By.id("file-upload"));: The file upload input element is identified using its id via By.id() and assigned to a WebElement class instance(More on Selenium WebElement in their official docs)
uploadElement.sendKeys(System.getenv("IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH"));: The sendkeys() method is used to type content automatically into editable fields while using Selenium. In this cases, we're passing in a file path of an image contained within our local system so that the specified file can be uploaded as an image
driver.findElement(By.id("file-submit")).click();: Here we're finding the submit button via the By.id() method(more on it in the official docs). Then the click() method is used to simulate clicking the submit button in the web form
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);: Now we tell Selenium to wait for two seconds before continuing the execution. This allows for the next page to load
WebElement javaLogo = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//img[@src='/uploads/" + System.getenv("IMAGE_FILE_NAME") + "']"));: Then we look for the uploaded image in the following page by using By.xpath()(more on By.xpath() in this great blog post)
Assert.assertNotNull(javaLogo);: Finally we validate that the image we uploaded in the previous screen indeed does appear in the current page. We do this by getting its src attribute and comparing it to the image file name we passed in. In order to do this, we have to add the website URL with the string /uploads/ to the expected value field of the Assert.assertEquals() call because the actual outcome value is going to be is that specified format

Ok, let's move on to the next test uploadNonImageFile():

    @Test
    public void uploadNonImageFile() {
            String baseUrl = "https://selenium-testing-website.herokuapp.com/upload";

            WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

            driver.get(baseUrl);
            WebElement uploadElement = driver.findElement(By.id("file-upload"));


            uploadElement.sendKeys(System.getenv("NON_IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH"));


            driver.findElement(By.id("file-submit")).click();

            driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

            WebElement nonImageText = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[contains(text(), '/uploads/" + System.getenv("NON_IMAGE_FILE_NAME") + "')]"));

            Assert.assertNotNull(nonImageText);
    }

Here is an explanation for the above test:

The purpose of this test is to evaluate whether uploading a non-image file will render the uploaded_non_image.erb view file with the non-image file path contained within it.
The beginning part of this test uses the same structure as the first test
uploadElement.sendKeys(System.getenv("NON_IMAGE_FILE_UPLOAD_PATH"));: This time, we're passing in a file path of a non-image file contained within our local system in order to test the above functionality
driver.findElement(By.id("file-submit")).click();: Here we're finding the submit button via the By.id() method(more on it in the official docs). Then the click() method is used to simulate clicking the submit button in the web form
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);: Now we tell Selenium to wait for two seconds before continuing the execution. This allows for the next page to load
WebElement nonImageText = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[contains(text(), '/uploads/" + System.getenv("NON_IMAGE_FILE_NAME") + "')]"));: Then we look for the uploaded file name text in the following page by using By.xpath()
Assert.assertNotNull(nonImageText);: Finally we validate that the file name text does indeed appear in the current page using the Assert.assertNotNul() method(more on this method here)

Now just right click on the SeleniumUploadFile.java file and select Run As -> JUnit Test in order to run our test.

Figure 2: Image Uploaded page

Figure 3: Non Image Uploaded page

Figure 4: Eclipse showing our two passing tests

And with that, we're able to to implement the file upload feature offered by Selenium WebDriver! Also, we've covered how to use By.id() and By.xpath() to locate img elements and elements containing certain texts in a given webpage, thereby killing two birds with one stone!

Congrats if you managed to get this functionality working. If not, leave a comment in the comments section and I'll get back to you if I find the time.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading this blog post!

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to post a comment in this post and I will get back to you when I find the time.

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