Selenium WebDriver and Java 8

From Selenium 3.0, minimum Java version is 8. In this blog article, we would like to show you how to use Java 8 features like Lambda expression and Collections Stream to simplify Selenium WebDriver snippets.

Let’s start with Lambda expression.

Java lambda expressions are Java’s first step into functional programming. A Java lambda expression is thus a function which can be created without belonging to any class. A lambda expression can be passed around as if it was an object and executed on demand.

Source: Tutorials Jenkov

Let’s say you want to print all the elements from an array list without lambda expression; then you will come up with the below snippet.

List list=new ArrayList();

list.add("Selenium");
list.add("UFT");
list.add("Appium");

for(String item:list){
  System.out.println(item);
}
  

The same logic, we can implement a lot easier with lambda expression in Java 8.

list.forEach(item -> System.out.println(item));
  

Collections Stream

Collections Stream is a new feature in Java 8. A stream represents a sequence of elements and supports different kind of operations from a collection.

Let’s say you want to check whether an option is available or not in a drop-down list.

Select select=new Select(driver.findElement(By.id("drp1")));

//Validating drop-down option without For Loop
select.getOptions().stream().anyMatch(item->item.getText().equals("Option1"))
  

Filtering WebElements using Regular Expression

driver.get("file:///C:/sample.html");

List<WebElement> elements=driver.findElements( By.xpath("//input[@type='checkbox']"));

elements.stream()
     .filter(element->Pattern.compile("check_(\d+)_box").matcher(element.getAttribute("id")).matches())
     .forEach(element->element.click());  

Getting a visible WebElement from WebElement List

driver.findElements(By.xpath("//input"))
                    .stream()
                    .filter(elemnt -> elemnt.isDisplayed())
                    .findFirst()
                    .get()
                    .sendKeys("codoid-testing company");
  

Very Simple, isn’t it?