A Guide to Implicit, Explicit, and Fluent Waits in Selenium

The use of the wait commands is one of the most essential skills to grasp if you want to become a skilled Selenium WebDriver user. They are required for executing test scripts as well as for identifying and resolving Time Latency issues in web elements.

Need of Waits in Selenium.

Waits are very important in Selenium and it is very important you understand it. You can enroll at a good online Selenium training program to get robust knowledge.

You can fix the anticipated timing difficulties by synchronizing the test to ensure Selenium WebDriver Waits until the application is ready before performing a specified action.

The components you want to interact with may load at different times when a page is loaded by the browser since the application uses Ajax and JavaScript. As a result, you have to provide some waits before acting on a certain element.

Implicit Wait.

Implicit Wait directs the Selenium WebDriver to delay throwing an exception for a predetermined amount of time. WebDriver will wait for the element after this time has been set before throwing an exception.

Once the command has been activated, Implicit Wait remains active for the entire time the browser is open. The default setting is 0, and the following protocol must be used to set the precise wait time.

By giving WebDriver this directive, you are telling it to wait a predetermined amount of time before assuming that an element will be displayed after it has loaded.

As a result, after waiting for a predetermined period of time, it will try to locate the element. NoSuchElementFound Exception will be fired if the element is still not found.

Syntax for Implicit Wait.

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

Example of Implicit Wait.

WebDriver driver= new FirefoxDriver();

driver.get(“https://perficient.com”);

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

Explicit Wait.

The WebDriver can be instructed to wait until a certain condition is met before running code using the Explicit Wait command.

When some parts naturally take longer to load than others, setting Explicit Wait is crucial. The browser will wait for the same amount of time before loading every web element if an implicit wait command is set. The test script’s execution is subsequently delayed needlessly as a result.

Though more sophisticated, explicit wait is limited to certain components. However, since it enables the program to stop for Ajax elements that are dynamically loaded, it is an enhancement over implicit wait.

You are telling WebDriver to hold off on expecting the element to be visible after loading until a Specific Amount of Time has passed.

Therefore, after waiting for a certain period of time, it will try to locate the element.

If the element is still absent, a NoSuchElementFound exception will be raised.

Syntax for Explicit Wait.

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);

WebElement element = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id(“ID”)));

In order to proceed with explicit wait, you must use “ExpectedConditions”. There are some Expected Conditions that can be used in Explicit Wait. They are:

• elementToBeClickable()
• elementToBeSelected()
• alertIsPresent()
• elementSelectionStateToBe()
• invisibilityOfTheElementLocated()
• invisibilityOfElementWithText()
• visibilityOfAllElements()
• visibilityOfAllElementsLocatedBy()
• visibilityOfElementLocated()

Example of Explicit Wait.

// explicit wait – to wait for the button to be click-able

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver,30);

wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.xpath(“//div[contains(text(),’BUTTON’)]”)));

Fluent Wait.

The Selenium term “fluent wait” refers to the longest period of time Selenium WebDriver will wait before a condition (web element) is met. Additionally, it specifies how many “ElementNotVisibleException” will be thrown by WebDriver before checking to see if the criteria is met.

Simply put, Fluent Wait continuously searches for a web element until timeout occurs or the object is located.

When working with online items that can take more time to load, fluent Wait commands are most helpful. This is a common occurrence with Ajax applications.

It is possible to adjust the default polling period when using Fluent Wait as required. In order to disregard any exceptions throughout the polling time, the user can configure the wait.

Due to the fact that they don’t wait out the complete duration specified in the code, fluent waits are also known as smart waits. As opposed to this, the test keeps running as soon as the element is found—that is, as soon as the condition stated in the.until(YourCondition) function is met.

We are asking WebDriver to check the DOM Every ‘n’ Seconds to see if the element is visible on the page. The default polling frequency for explicit waits is 500 ms. Additionally, the fluid wait Polling Frequency can be changed based on your needs. If you do not find an element while polling, you can disregard any exception, such as the NoSuchElementException.

Syntax for Fluent Wait.

FluentWait wait = new FluentWait(driver)

.withTimeout(TotalTime, TimeUnit.SECONDS)

.pollingEvery(pollingTime, TimeUnit.SECONDS)

.ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);

Example of Fluent Wait.

FluentWait wait = new FluentWait(driver)

.withTimeout(15, TimeUnit.SECONDS)

.pollingEvery(3, TimeUnit.SECONDS)

.ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);

Difference between implicit and explicit wait commands.

• When you are certain that the element will be shown at a certain time, you usually use implicit wait. While Explicit Wait is frequently employed when it is unclear when an element will be visible. It runs into a dynamic environment.

• In contrast to explicit wait, which allows you to declare the wait explicitly based on a specific circumstance, implicit wait does not allow you to express the wait based on criteria like element selectability or clickability.

• While Explicit Wait only applies to a certain element that is related to a given condition, Implicit Wait is automatically applied to all of the script’s elements.

Conclusion.

Fluent, Explicit, and Implicit Waits are the various waits in Selenium. How these waits are employed completely depends on the objects that are loaded at different periods. Thread usage is never recommended. When developing or testing a framework, use sleep(). To learn more about Waits in Selenium, you can check out the online Selenium certification course.