Selenium WebDriver in Python (local and remote)

Requirements

• Python 3.9+

• Selenium Python bindings (pip install selenium)

Selenium - Local WebDriver example

Let’s start with a very simple Selenium WebDriver example…

Consider the following Python code:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

from selenium import webdriver


driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://saucelabs.com/test/guinea-pig")
driver.quit()

This code uses webdriver.Chrome(), to invoke the local Chrome driver.

Selenium - Remote WebDriver example

Instead of running locally via webdriver.Chrome(), we can use webdriver.Remote(), and have it execute from a remote machine running Selenium Server. In this case, the Sauce Labs cloud:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import os

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options


options = Options()
options.browser_version = "latest"
options.platform_name = "Windows 11"
options.add_argument("--headless=new")

sauce_options = {"username": os.environ["SAUCE_USERNAME"],
                 "accessKey": os.environ["SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY"],
                 "name": "my_first_test"}

options.set_capability("sauce:options", sauce_options)
sauce_url = "https://ondemand.us-west-1.saucelabs.com/wd/hub"

driver = webdriver.Remote(command_executor=sauce_url, options=options)
driver.get("https://saucelabs.com/test/guinea-pig")
driver.quit()

Running a Test From Local WebDriver

The following Python script executes a simple test against a remote web server. It drives the local Chrome browser:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import unittest

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By


class SeleniumLocalTest(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        self.driver = webdriver.Chrome()

    def test_from_local(self):
        self.driver.get("https://saucelabs.com/test/guinea-pig")
        self.assertEqual("I am a page title - Sauce Labs", self.driver.title)
        body = self.driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR("body")
        self.assertIn("This page is a Selenium sandbox", body.text)

    def tearDown(self):
        self.driver.quit()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()

Running a Test From Sauce Labs

Similar Python script as above, but now executing from Sauce Labs cloud. Notice the use of webdriver.Remote() as a replacement driver:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import os
import unittest

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options


class SeleniumSauceTest(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        options = Options()
        options.browser_version = "latest"
        options.platform_name = "Windows 11"
        options.add_argument("--headless=new")
        sauce_options = {"username": os.environ["SAUCE_USERNAME"],
                         "accessKey": os.environ["SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY"],
                         "name": "my_first_test"}
        options.set_capability("sauce:options", sauce_options)
        sauce_url = "https://ondemand.us-west-1.saucelabs.com/wd/hub"
        self.driver = webdriver.Remote(command_executor=sauce_url, options=options)

    def test_from_sauce(self):
        self.driver.get("https://saucelabs.com/test/guinea-pig")
        self.assertEqual("I am a page title - Sauce Labs", self.driver.title)
        body = self.driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR("body")
        self.assertIn("This page is a Selenium sandbox", body.text)

    def tearDown(self):
        self.driver.quit()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()