include file ruby selenium - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have multiple ruby test cases for selenium-webdriver and all the files are sharing the same functions. is there any way to create a global file and include the file to these test cases instead of typing them over and over again
for example - I create a file setup.rb
def setup
#driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
wait = Selenium::WebDriver::Wait.new(:timeout => 10)
end
then in my test_file.rb I start
require setup
setup
#driver.find_element(:xpath => '//span[text()="войти"]').click
There is an error
NoMethodError:
undefined method `find_element' for nil:NilClass

Answer 1

Change it to a global variable from an instance variable. Make it $driver instead of #driver and you shouldn't have a problem. Change it to something like..
def self_setup
$driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
wait = Selenium::WebDriver::Wait.new(:timeout => 10)
end
and then
require "./setup.rb"
setup.setup
$driver.find_element(:xpath => '//span[text()="войти"]').click
That should work. You'd probably want to go to a page first before you look for that xpath though. setup will only open up a new instance of firefox webdriver. Also I would suggest changing the name of setup.rb so it can be foo.setup insead of setup.setup. I use Lib.rb for the methods I want to be able to call regularly so for instance one would be Lib.signin_admin
Hope this works for you.

Answer 2

In response to your example, I think you forgot to include the setup module (you did put your method definition inside a module, right?). Also, the comment that mentions assigning the driver as a global variable (by naming it with a starting dollar sign) is a good idea. So things would look like this...
setup.rb
module Setup
def setup
$driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
$wait = Selenium::WebDriver::Wait.new(:timeout => 10)
end
end
test_file.rb
require 'setup'
class SeleniumTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
include Setup # Modules need to be included (mixed-in) in order to be used inside classes
# Setup is automagically called when using TestUnit
$driver.get "http://www.yoururl.com"
$driver.find_element(:xpath => '//span[text()="войти"]').click
end
The downside is that for each new module and file you create, you have to require and include all of the new files and modules you want to use.
The method that I have found to work for me is to create a 'test_helper.rb', and to use a gem called 'require_all' that requires and includes all of the files from the directories you specify.
My test_helper.rb looks something like this:
require "rubygems"
require "require_all"
require "selenium-webdriver"
require "test-unit"
require_all relative_path("../lib/selenium/")
module TestHelpers
include Selenium
def setup
$driver = Selenium::WebDriver.for :firefox
...
end
def teardown
$driver.quit
end
end
And the test_page.rb only requires two lines:
# Line 1: Ensures the test_helper.rb gets loaded from the same directory the test_page.rb resides in
require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'test_helper')
class TestPage < Test::Unit::TestCase
# Line 2: Module needs mixed in to use its methods
include TestHelpers
def test_page
$driver.get "http://www.mysite.com"
assert $driver.find_element(:css => "div#my_site_logo")
end
end