Can I get at WordPress code from inside a Selenium test?

There are many ways to skin a cat and trying to use Selenium with WordPress CLI is new to me. Essentially, WordPress is ‘just’ a dynamic website using a SQL database with some themes and plugin files behind it.

Selenium is designed as a frontend browser test tool so keep that in mind for a minute and I assume you mean Selenium IDE. The result would be very brittle test cases if you built something up with Selenium IDE + WordPress CLI.

What is Brittle? Hard to maintain, test cases that need to be adjusted everytime you try to run them, a lot more test fails then passes. <<

Given your experience of testing is probably more than mine (which is easy) … I’d recommend you look at python or php and connect to the mySQL database and not use WP CLI (or start by having SequelPro or PHPMyAdmin running).

I believe this is what you are looking for as:

a. It separates the Front End user experience from the database
b. Your Selenium IDE test cases won’t need WP CLI
c. You won’t need to update your Selenium test cases as often as you probably do today
d. You can trigger pyhton / php unit tests from terminal
e. You can play around with database changes and just watch your Selenium test cases pass or fail
f. you can the just drop / reset your database table and start test cases again 🙂

PS … I’ve written about using ChromeDriver / Python / Selenium to do very basic browser tests for my WordPress site.

PPS I’d be interested to keep in touch / have a chat if you’re in the UK about Selenium / WordPress, etc.

Related Posts:

  1. Exception in thread “main” java.lang.Error: Unresolved compilation problems
  2. Exception in thread “main” java.lang.Error: Unresolved compilation problems
  3. What’s the difference between a mock & stub?
  4. How can I test that a variable is more than eight characters in PowerShell?
  5. How to run only one unit test class using Gradle
  6. How to configure “Shorten command line” method for whole project in IntelliJ
  7. Testing hooks callback
  8. Developing, Testing and Releasing
  9. Proper unit testing in WordPress
  10. Using wp_mail during an integration test
  11. WP_UnitTestCase missing?
  12. What’s the proper method of installing a plugin during unit testing?
  13. Duplicate a WordPress Install for Testing Purposes
  14. PHPSpec and WordPress
  15. Coverage in integration tests
  16. Integration tests don’t register menu
  17. Integration testing – test is_wp_error in the code?
  18. Am I testing this right?
  19. Is there a way to mock update_option for unit testing?
  20. How to use WordPress methods (themes, plugins, context) with Behat?
  21. WordPress Automatic Testing Probelm
  22. why my must use plugins (mu-plugins) not work at localhost?
  23. How do I get PHPUnit Polyfills set up for testing on a mac?
  24. Set up PHPUnit with WordPress: The WordPress tests are 3 – 4 years old; does it matter?
  25. Available methods for a/b testing the content
  26. Testing performance of WordPress files
  27. How can I enable IDE integration (autocomplete) for WordPress test suite
  28. Integration test – remove the mu plugins in the test
  29. Unit Test ignores stubbed method second time around in a dataProvider
  30. can I run the test suite without a web server?
  31. Running plugin unit tests vs. integration tests?
  32. How do I activate a plugin while testing?
  33. How do I simulate a registration form submission while testing?
  34. How do I package and distribute my WordPress plugin via git?
  35. How can I solve the error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol – function?
  36. How to measure test coverage in Go
  37. MOCKITO: What is it and how is it different from Junit
  38. Verify a method call using Moq
  39. Chrome Error: You are using an unsupported command-line flag: –ignore-certifcate-errors. Stability and security will suffer
  40. ReferenceError: describe is not defined NodeJs
  41. Proper way to assert type of variable in Python
  42. How to perform unit testing on proposed patches in Trac?
  43. Unit testing for plugin development
  44. Unit testing in the WordPress backend (is_admin() is true)
  45. Vagrant script to setup all the common PHP / WordPress version combinations
  46. Unit tests – Dealing with dependencies
  47. PHP unit testing WordPress?
  48. Writing test cases for a WordPress Plugin that has translations
  49. Creating Unique Post URLs for A/B Testing… Is this even possible?
  50. Tutorials for Unit-Testing in WordPress and for unit-test.svn.wordpress.org?
  51. Theme Check gives: Required: This theme doesn’t seem to display tags?
  52. Is there an A/B testing plugin that lets you vary the heading, featured image, and content in a WordPress post?
  53. Why Can’t PHPUnit UnitTest My WordPress Website
  54. How to transfer changes from test environment to live site?
  55. Revert WordPress default options after a PHPUnit test has run
  56. How to properly test a method that is called by an action hook
  57. How can I debug my database connection for unit testing?
  58. Activate different theme for temporary preview
  59. How to disable redirect on test/staging copy of wordpress site
  60. How to run a test WordPressMu to WordPress3 update?
  61. How to add an image for unit testing?
  62. How to login to WordPress site using basic authentication HTTP headers?
  63. Why is WP_Mock not used instead of WP_UnitTestCase for writing unit tests by most plugins?
  64. Is there any free (or cheap) software that can be used for testing WordPress functionality?
  65. Best way to notify WordPress plugin users of new release candidates for beta testing?
  66. Can I check plugins and themes for PHP 5.6 ahead of global PHP server Update
  67. How to initialize something in unit test before the init hook being called?
  68. Rest API in integration tests – filtering by slug not working?
  69. WordPress installation site folder move to the final site destination
  70. How to create a network using a command line script?
  71. How can I test why the comment hook is not working?
  72. Can’t run WP e2e-test-utils because the browser exits on login?
  73. Python with wordpress plugin
  74. How to run subversion and staging environments when running WordPress
  75. A/B testing of posts with unique URLs for each variant AND editing in custom fields
  76. Identifying where plugins are being used in your wordpress install
  77. Publishing WordPress from stage to production server
  78. Test site pages go to main site
  79. Create a blank test.php
  80. Integration tests test script enqueue/register fails
  81. .PO file is found but I don’t see translations: how to debug the problem?
  82. How to automate post update website check?
  83. A/B test options at the widget level [closed]
  84. Mocking WP_CLI static methods in unit tests
  85. Clone WordPress for testing on localhost (with Fiddler)
  86. Is there a delay to include call function modification in a scheduled cron task?
  87. PHPUnit Testing and woocommerce Constant
  88. How can I measure CPU and RAM used by my theme or plugin
  89. Making sure updates didn’t break anything
  90. Testing localhost WordPress site over LAN with iPad, iPhone
  91. Testing Plugins for Multisite
  92. How to test if in dashboard, bypassing Ajax quirk
  93. Best way to move a site to a subfolder for testing purposes?
  94. How to properly maintain a testing version of a site?
  95. Duplicate WordPress site to subdirectory but use same db?
  96. What is a good way to test that plugin upgrades have completed properly?
  97. How do you create a development site into a subdirectory of the live site?
  98. How do I set up a test environment in a sub-folder?
  99. How to set up a development/staging site to make major changes to the theme then update on the live site?
  100. ACF – programmatically install and activate in pipeline to automate testing for custom plugin development?

Leave a Comment