README.rdoc in capybara-0.4.1.2 vs README.rdoc in capybara-1.0.0.beta1
- old
+ new
@@ -5,16 +5,15 @@
== Description:
Capybara aims to simplify the process of integration testing Rack applications,
such as Rails, Sinatra or Merb. Capybara simulates how a real user would
interact with a web application. It is agnostic about the driver running your
-tests and currently comes bundled with rack-test, Culerity, Celerity and Selenium
-support built in. env.js support is available as the
-{capybara-envjs gem}[http://github.com/smparkes/capybara-envjs].
+tests and currently comes with Rack::Test and Selenium support built in.
+HtmlUnit and env.js are supported through external gems.
-Online documentation is availbable
-{at rdoc.info}[http://rdoc.info/projects/jnicklas/capybara].
+A complete reference is available at
+{at rubydoc.info}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master].
== Install:
Install as a gem:
@@ -34,10 +33,11 @@
a testing tool after all. Please create a topic branch for every separate change
you make.
Capybara uses bundler in development. To set up a development environment, simply do:
+ git submodule update --init
gem install bundler --pre
bundle install
== Using Capybara with Cucumber
@@ -68,12 +68,12 @@
for you to use in Cucumber. Often you'll want to run only some scenarios with a
driver that supports JavaScript, Capybara makes this easy: simply tag the
scenario (or feature) with <tt>@javascript</tt>:
@javascript
- Scenario: do something AJAXy
- When I click the AJAX link
+ Scenario: do something Ajaxy
+ When I click the Ajax link
...
You can change which driver Capybara uses for JavaScript:
Capybara.javascript_driver = :culerity
@@ -81,139 +81,263 @@
There are also explicit <tt>@selenium</tt>, <tt>@culerity</tt> and
<tt>@rack_test</tt> tags set up for you.
== Using Capybara with RSpec
-If you prefer RSpec to using Cucumber, you can use the built in RSpec support:
+If you prefer RSpec to using Cucumber, you can use the built in RSpec support
+by adding the following line (typically to your <tt>spec_helper.rb</tt> file):
require 'capybara/rspec'
- Capybara.app = MyRackApp
You can now use it in your examples:
- describe "the signup process", :type => :acceptance do
+ describe "the signup process", :type => :request do
+ before :each do
+ User.make(:email => 'user@example.com', :password => 'caplin')
+ end
+
it "signs me in" do
within("#session") do
fill_in 'Login', :with => 'user@example.com'
fill_in 'Password', :with => 'password'
end
click_link 'Sign in'
end
end
-Capybara is only included for examples which have the type
-<tt>:acceptance</tt>.
+Capybara is only included for examples with <tt>:type => :request</tt> (or
+<tt>:acceptance</tt> for compatibility).
+If you use the <tt>rspec-rails</tt> gem, <tt>:type => :request</tt> is
+automatically set on all files under <tt>spec/requests</tt>. Essentially, these
+are Capybara-enhanced Rails request specs, so it's a good idea to place your
+Capybara specs here because within request specs you gain a few additional
+features, such as the ability to refer to named route helpers. If you do not
+need these, then you may simply use <tt>spec/acceptance</tt> and you will still
+get access to Capybara methods.
+
RSpec's metadata feature can be used to switch to a different driver. Use
<tt>:js => true</tt> to switch to the javascript driver, or provide a
<tt>:driver</tt> option to switch to one specific driver. For example:
describe 'some stuff which requires js', :js => true do
it 'will use the default js driver'
it 'will switch to one specific driver', :driver => :celerity
end
+Capybara also comes with a built in DSL for creating descriptive acceptance tests:
+
+ feature "Signing up" do
+ background do
+ User.make(:email => 'user@example.com', :password => 'caplin')
+ end
+
+ scenario "Signing in with correct credentials" do
+ within("#session") do
+ fill_in 'Login', :with => 'user@example.com'
+ fill_in 'Password', :with => 'caplin'
+ end
+ click_link 'Sign in'
+ end
+ end
+
+Essentially, this is just a shortcut for making a request spec, where
+<tt>feature</tt> is a shortcut for <tt>describe ..., :type => :request</tt>,
+<tt>background</tt> is an alias for <tt>before :each</tt>, and <tt>scenario</tt>
+is an alias for <tt>it</tt>/<tt>example</tt>. Again, you are encouraged to place
+these within <tt>spec/requests</tt> rather than <tt>spec/acceptance</tt>.
+
Note that Capybara's built in RSpec support only works with RSpec 2.0 or later.
You'll need to roll your own for earlier versions of RSpec.
-== Default and current driver
+== Using Capybara with Test::Unit
-You can set up a default driver for your features. For example if you'd prefer
-to run Selenium, you could do:
+To use Capybara with Test::Unit, include the DSL (<tt>include Capybara</tt> up
+until version 0.4.x, <tt>include Capybara::DSL</tt> for newer versions) in
+whatever test class you are using. For example, if your classes derive from
+<tt>ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest</tt>, use
+ class ActionDispatch::IntegrationTest
+ include Capybara::DSL
+ end
+
+Test::Unit does not support selecting the driver through test metadata, but you
+can switch the driver for specific classes using the <tt>setup</tt> and
+<tt>teardown</tt> methods. See the section "Selecting the Driver".
+
+== Using Capybara with Ruby on Rails
+
+If you are using the Rails framework, add this line to automatically configure
+Capybara to test against your Rails application:
+
require 'capybara/rails'
- require 'capybara/cucumber'
+
+== Using Capybara with Rack
+
+If you're using Capybara with a non-Rails Rack application, set
+<tt>Capybara.app</tt> to your application class:
+
+ Capybara.app = MyRackApp
+
+== Drivers
+
+Capybara uses the same DSL to drive a variety of browser and headless drivers.
+
+=== Selecting the Driver
+
+By default, Capybara uses the <tt>:rack_test</tt> driver, which is fast but does not
+support JavaScript. You can set up a different default driver for your
+features. For example if you'd prefer to run everything in Selenium, you could
+do:
+
Capybara.default_driver = :selenium
-You can change the driver temporarily:
+However, if you are using RSpec or Cucumber, you may instead want to consider
+leaving the faster <tt>:rack_test</tt> as the +default_driver+, and marking only those
+tests that require a JavaScript-capable driver using <tt>:js => true</tt> or
+<tt>@javascript</tt>, respectively. By default, JavaScript tests are run using the
+<tt>:selenium</tt> driver. You can change this by setting
+<tt>Capybara.javascript_driver</tt>.
- Capybara.current_driver = :culerity
- Capybara.use_default_driver
+You can also change the driver temporarily (typically in the Before/setup and
+After/teardown blocks):
-You can do this in Before and After blocks to temporarily switch to a different
-driver. Note that switching driver creates a new session, so you may not be able
-to switch in the middle of a Scenario.
+ Capybara.current_driver = :culerity # temporarily select different driver
+ ... tests ...
+ Capybara.use_default_driver # switch back to default driver
-== Selenium
+Note that switching the driver creates a new session, so you may not be able to
+switch in the middle of a test.
-At the moment, Capybara supports Webdriver, also called Selenium 2.0, *not*
-Selenium RC. Provided Firefox is installed, everything is set up for you, and
-you should be able to start using Selenium right away.
+=== RackTest
-== Celerity
+RackTest is Capybara's default driver. It is written in pure Ruby and does not
+have any support for executing JavaScript. Since the RackTest driver works
+directly agains the Rack interface, it does not need any server to be started,
+it can work directly work against any Rack app. This means that if your
+application is not a Rack application (Rails, Sinatra and most other Ruby
+frameworks are Rack applications) then you cannot use this driver. You cannot
+use the RackTest driver to test a remote application.
+{capybara-mechanize}[https://github.com/jeroenvandijk/capybara-mechanize]
+intends to provide a similar driver which works against remote servers, it is a
+separate project.
-Celerity only runs on JRuby, so you'll need to install the celerity gem under
-JRuby:
+RackTest can be configured with a set of headers like this:
- jruby -S gem install celerity
+ Capybara.register_driver :rack_test do |app|
+ Capybara::RackTest::Driver.new(app, :browser => :chrome)
+ end
-== Culerity
+See the section on adding and configuring drivers.
-Install celerity as noted above, make sure JRuby is in your path. Note that
-Culerity doesn't seem to be working under Ruby 1.9 at the moment.
+=== Selenium
-== env.js
+At the moment, Capybara supports {Selenium 2.0
+(Webdriver)}[http://seleniumhq.org/docs/01_introducing_selenium.html#selenium-2-aka-selenium-webdriver],
+*not* Selenium RC. Provided Firefox is installed, everything is set up for you,
+and you should be able to start using Selenium right away.
+By default Capybara tries to synchronize Ajax requests, so it will wait for
+Ajax requests to finish after you've interacted with the page. You can switch
+off this behaviour by setting the driver option <tt>:resynchronize</tt> to
+<tt>false</tt>. See the section on configuring drivers.
+
+Note: Selenium does not support transactional fixtures; see the section
+"Transactional Fixtures" below.
+
+=== HtmlUnit
+
+There are three different drivers, maintained as external gems, that you can
+use to drive {HtmlUnit}[http://htmlunit.sourceforge.net/]:
+
+* {Akephalos}[https://github.com/bernerdschaefer/akephalos] might be the best
+ HtmlUnit driver right now.
+
+* {Celerity}[https://github.com/sobrinho/capybara-celerity] only runs on JRuby,
+ so you'll need to install the celerity gem under JRuby: <tt>jruby -S gem
+ install celerity</tt>
+
+* {Culerity}[https://github.com/sobrinho/capybara-culerity]: Install celerity
+ as noted above, and make sure that JRuby is in your path. Note that Culerity
+ does not seem to be working under Ruby 1.9 at the moment.
+
+Note: HtmlUnit does not support transactional fixtures; see the section
+"Transactional Fixtures" below.
+
+=== env.js
+
The {capybara-envjs driver}[http://github.com/smparkes/capybara-envjs]
uses the envjs gem ({GitHub}[http://github.com/smparkes/env-js],
{rubygems.org}[http://rubygems.org/gems/envjs]) to interpret
JavaScript outside the browser. The driver is installed by installing the capybara-envjs gem:
gem install capybara-envjs
More info about the driver and env.js are available through the links above. The envjs gem only supports
Ruby 1.8.7 at this time.
+Note: Envjs does not support transactional fixtures; see the section
+"Transactional Fixtures" below.
+
== The DSL
-Capybara's DSL is inspired by Webrat. While backwards compatibility is retained
-in a lot of cases, there are certain important differences.
+Capybara's DSL (domain-specific language) is inspired by Webrat. While
+backwards compatibility is retained in a lot of cases, there are certain
+important differences. Unlike in Webrat, all searches in Capybara are *case
+sensitive*. This is because Capybara heavily uses XPath, which doesn't support
+case insensitivity.
-Unlike in Webrat, all searches in Capybara are *case sensitive*. This is because
-Capybara heavily uses XPath, which doesn't support case insensitivity.
-
=== Navigating
-You can use the <tt>visit</tt> method to navigate to other pages:
+You can use the
+<tt>{visit}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Session#visit-instance_method]</tt>
+method to navigate to other pages:
visit('/projects')
visit(post_comments_path(post))
The visit method only takes a single parameter, the request method is *always*
GET.
-You can get the current path of the browsing session for test assertions:
+You can get the {current
+path}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Session#current_path-instance_method]
+of the browsing session for test assertions:
current_path.should == post_comments_path(post)
=== Clicking links and buttons
+<em>Full reference: {Capybara::Node::Actions}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Node/Actions]</em>
+
You can interact with the webapp by following links and buttons. Capybara
automatically follows any redirects, and submits forms associated with buttons.
click_link('id-of-link')
click_link('Link Text')
click_button('Save')
- click_link_or_button('Link Text')
- click_link_or_button('Button Value')
+ click_on('Link Text') # clicks on either links or buttons
+ click_on('Button Value')
=== Interacting with forms
-Forms are everywhere in webapps, there are a number of tools for interacting
-with the various form elements:
+<em>Full reference: {Capybara::Node::Actions}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Node/Actions]</em>
+There are a number of tools for interacting with form elements:
+
fill_in('First Name', :with => 'John')
fill_in('Password', :with => 'Seekrit')
- fill_in('Description', :with => 'Really Long Text…')
+ fill_in('Description', :with => 'Really Long Text...')
choose('A Radio Button')
check('A Checkbox')
uncheck('A Checkbox')
attach_file('Image', '/path/to/image.jpg')
select('Option', :from => 'Select Box')
=== Querying
+<em>Full reference: {Capybara::Node::Matchers}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Node/Matchers]</em>
+
Capybara has a rich set of options for querying the page for the existence of
certain elements, and working with and manipulating those elements.
page.has_selector?('table tr')
page.has_selector?(:xpath, '//table/tr')
@@ -221,11 +345,11 @@
page.has_xpath?('//table/tr')
page.has_css?('table tr.foo')
page.has_content?('foo')
-You can these use with RSpec's magic matchers:
+You can use these with RSpec's magic matchers:
page.should have_selector('table tr')
page.should have_selector(:xpath, '//table/tr')
page.should have_no_selector(:content)
@@ -236,12 +360,20 @@
Note that <tt>page.should have_no_xpath</tt> is preferred over
<tt>page.should_not have_xpath</tt>. Read the section on asynchronous JavaScript
for an explanation.
+If all else fails, you can also use the
+<tt>{page.html}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Session#html-instance_method]</tt>
+method to test against the raw HTML:
+
+ page.html.should match /<span>.../i
+
=== Finding
+<em>Full reference: {Capybara::Node::Finders}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Node/Finders]</em>
+
You can also find specific elements, in order to manipulate them:
find_field('First Name').value
find_link('Hello').visible?
find_button('Send').click
@@ -249,11 +381,11 @@
find(:xpath, "//table/tr").click
find("#overlay").find("h1").click
all('a').each { |a| a[:href] }
Note that <tt>find</tt> will wait for an element to appear on the page, as explained in the
-AJAX section. If the element does not appear it will raise an error.
+Ajax section. If the element does not appear it will raise an error.
These elements all have all the Capybara DSL methods available, so you can restrict them
to specific parts of the page:
find('#navigation').click_link('Home')
@@ -261,12 +393,13 @@
=== Scoping
Capybara makes it possible to restrict certain actions, such as interacting with
forms or clicking links and buttons, to within a specific area of the page. For
-this purpose you can use the generic <tt>within</tt> method. Optionally you can
-specify which kind of selector to use.
+this purpose you can use the generic
+<tt>{within}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Session#within-instance_method]</tt>
+method. Optionally you can specify which kind of selector to use.
within("li#employee") do
fill_in 'Name', :with => 'Jimmy'
end
@@ -302,12 +435,23 @@
It can be useful to take a snapshot of the page as it currently is and take a
look at it:
save_and_open_page
-== Asynchronous JavaScript (AJAX and friends)
+== Transactional fixtures
+Transactional fixtures only work in the default Rack::Test driver, but not for
+other drivers like Selenium. Cucumber takes care of this automatically, but
+with Test::Unit or RSpec, you may have to use the
+{database_cleaner}[https://github.com/bmabey/database_cleaner] gem. See {this
+explanation}[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ruby-capybara/JI6JrirL9gM/R6YiXj4gi_UJ]
+(and code for {solution
+2}[http://opinionated-programmer.com/2011/02/capybara-and-selenium-with-rspec-and-rails-3/#comment-220]
+and {solution 3}[http://pastie.org/1745020]) for details.
+
+== Asynchronous JavaScript (Ajax and friends)
+
When working with asynchronous JavaScript, you might come across situations
where you are attempting to interact with an element which is not yet present
on the page. Capybara automatically deals with this by waiting for elements
to appear on the page.
@@ -316,11 +460,11 @@
click_link('foo')
click_link('bar')
page.should have_content('baz')
If clicking on the *foo* link causes triggers an asynchronous process, such as
-an AJAX request, which, when complete will add the *bar* link to the page,
+an Ajax request, which, when complete will add the *bar* link to the page,
clicking on the *bar* link would be expeced to fail, since that link doesn't
exist yet. However Capybara is smart enought to retry finding the link for a
brief period of time before giving up and throwing an error. The same is true of
the next line, which looks for the content *baz* on the page; it will retry
looking for that content for a brief time. You can adjust how long this period
@@ -337,22 +481,22 @@
The former would incorrectly wait for the content to appear, since the
asynchronous process has not yet removed the element from the page, it would
therefore fail, even though the code might be working correctly. The latter
correctly waits for the element to disappear from the page.
-== Using the DSL outside cucumber
+== Using the DSL in unsupported testing frameworks
-You can mix the DSL into any context, for example you could use it in RSpec
-examples. Just load the DSL and include it anywhere:
+You can mix the DSL into any context by including +Capybara::DSL+:
+
require 'capybara'
require 'capybara/dsl'
Capybara.default_driver = :culerity
module MyModule
- include Capybara
+ include Capybara::DSL
def login!
within("//form[@id='session']") do
fill_in 'Login', :with => 'user@example.com'
fill_in 'Password', :with => 'password'
@@ -370,12 +514,13 @@
Capybara.current_driver = :selenium
Capybara.app_host = 'http://www.google.com'
...
visit('/')
-Note that rack-test does not support running against a remote server. With
-drivers that support it, you can also visit any URL directly:
+Note that the default driver (<tt>:rack_test</tt>) does not support running
+against a remote server. With drivers that support it, you can also visit any
+URL directly:
visit('http://www.google.com')
By default Capybara will try to boot a rack application automatically. You
might want to switch off Capybara's rack server if you are running against a
@@ -383,11 +528,13 @@
Capybara.run_server = false
== Using the sessions manually
-For ultimate control, you can instantiate and use a session manually.
+For ultimate control, you can instantiate and use a
+{Session}[http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master/Capybara/Session]
+manually.
require 'capybara'
session = Capybara::Session.new(:culerity, my_rack_app)
session.within("//form[@id='session']") do
@@ -397,12 +544,12 @@
session.click_link 'Sign in'
== XPath, CSS and selectors
Capybara does not try to guess what kind of selector you are going to give it,
-if you want to use XPath with your 'within' declarations for example, you'll need
-to do:
+and will always use CSS by default. If you want to use XPath, you'll need to
+do:
within(:xpath, '//ul/li') { ... }
find(:xpath, '//ul/li').text
find(:xpath, '//li[contains(.//a[@href = "#"]/text(), "foo")]').value
@@ -472,18 +619,18 @@
Capybara makes it convenient to switch between different drivers. It also exposes
an API to tweak those drivers with whatever settings you want, or to add your own
drivers. This is how to switch the selenium driver to use chrome:
Capybara.register_driver :selenium do |app|
- Capybara::Driver::Selenium.new(app, :browser => :chrome)
+ Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, :browser => :chrome)
end
However, it's also possible to give this a different name, so tests can switch
between using different browsers effortlessly:
Capybara.register_driver :selenium_chrome do |app|
- Capybara::Driver::Selenium.new(app, :browser => :chrome)
+ Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, :browser => :chrome)
end
Whatever is returned from the block should conform to the API described by
Capybara::Driver::Base, it does not however have to inherit from this class.
Gems can use this API to add their own drivers to Capybara.
@@ -501,10 +648,10 @@
* Access to Rails specific stuff (such as <tt>controller</tt>) is unavailable,
since we're not using Rails' integration testing.
* Freezing time: It's common practice to mock out the Time so that features
that depend on the current Date work as expected. This can be problematic,
- since Capybara's AJAX timing uses the system time, resulting in Capybara
+ since Capybara's Ajax timing uses the system time, resulting in Capybara
never timing out and just hanging when a failure occurs. It's still possible to
use plugins which allow you to travel in time, rather than freeze time.
One such plugin is {Timecop}[http://github.com/jtrupiano/timecop].
* When using Rack::Test, beware if attempting to visit absolute URLs. For