WebDriver Implicit, Explicit and Fluent Wait Examples
What is the difference between implicit wait, explicit wait and fluent wait in WebDriver? More specifically, what is the relation between WebDriverWait and FluentWait?
Here are examples of using each wait method in WebDriver with Java.
Implicit Wait
An implicit wait is to tell WebDriver to poll the DOM for a certain amount of time when trying to find an element or elements if they are not immediately available. The default setting is 0. Once set, the implicit wait is set for the life of the WebDriver object instance.
Example of using implicit wait
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
driver.get("http://somedomain/slow_loading_url");
WebElement dynamicElement = driver.findElement(By.id("dynamicElement"));
When should we use implicit waits?
Normally, it is not recommended to use implicit waits, when we can use explicit waits or fluent waits.
Explicit Wait
An explicit wait is a code that you define to wait for a certain condition to occur before proceeding further in the code. WebDriverWait by default calls the ExpectedCondition every 500 milliseconds until it returns successfully.
Example of using explicit wait
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.get("http://somedomain/someurl");
WebElement dynamicElement = (new WebDriverWait(driver, 10))
.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.id("dynamicElement")));
When should we use explicit waits?
We would normally use explicit wait if an element takes a long time to load. We also used explicit wait to check CSS property of an element (presence, clickability. etc) which can change in Ajax applications.
Fluent Wait
When using the FluentWait instance, we can specify:
- The frequency with which FluentWait has to check the conditions defined.
- Ignore specific types of exception waiting such as NoSuchElementExceptions while searching for an element on the page.
- The maximum amount of time to wait for a condition
Example of using FluentWait
// Waiting 30 seconds for an element to be present on the page, checking
// for its presence once every 5 seconds.
Wait<WebDriver> wait = new FluentWait<WebDriver>(driver)
.withTimeout(30, SECONDS)
.pollingEvery(5, SECONDS)
.ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);
WebElement foo = wait.until(new Function<WebDriver, WebElement>()
{
public WebElement apply(WebDriver driver) {
return driver.findElement(By.id("foo"));
}
});
When should we use FluentWait?
When you try to test the presence of an element that may appear after every x seconds/minutes.
Difference Between WebDriverWait and FluentWait
WebDriverWait is a subclass of FluentWait. In FluentWait you have more options to configure, along with maximum wait time, like polling interval, exceptions to ignore etc.
So, instead of waiting and then using findElement:
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 18);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.linkText("Account")));
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.linkText("Account"));
element.sendKeys(Keys.CONTROL);
element.click();
we can use:
WebElement element = wait.until(
ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.linkText("Account")));