Robula+

Robula+ is an algorithm to generate robust XPath-based locators, that are likely to work correctly with new releases of a web application. Robula+ reduces the locators' fragility on average by 90% w.r.t. absolute locators and by 63% w.r.t. Selenium IDE locators [1].

Usage

getRobustXPath(element, document):

Returns an optimized robust XPath locator string.

Parameter	Type	Description
element	Element	The desired element.
document	Document	The document to analyse, that contains the desired element.

Returns: A robust xPath locator string, describing the desired element.

getElementByXPath(xPath, document):

Returns an element in the given document located by the given xPath locator.

Parameter	Type	Description
xPath	string	A xPath string, describing the desired element.
document	Document	The document to analyse, that contains the desired element.

Returns: The first maching Element located.

uniquelyLocate(xPath, element, document):

Returns, wheater an xPath describes only the given element.

Parameter	Type	Description
xPath	string	A xPath string, describing the desired element.
element	Element	The desired element.
document	Document	The document to analyse, that contains the desired element.

Returns: True, if the xPath describes only the desired element.

Example

Get a robust XPath from an absolute XPath:

import { RobulaPlus } from "robula-plus";

let robulaPlus = new RobulaPlus();
let element = robulaPlus.getElementByXPath('/html/body/div/span/a', document);
robulaPlus.getRobustXPath(element, document);

Contributing

A current version of Node.js and npm is recommended. To clone this repository, type:

git clone https://github.com/cyluxx/robula-plus.git

Navigate to the directory, and install dependencies:

cd robula-plus
npm install

Run tests with the following command:

npm test

About

Authors: Maurizio Leotta, Andrea Stocco, Filippo Ricca and Paolo Tonella.

This TypeScript Implementation by: @Cyluxx

For more information on how the algorithm works, please refer to:

[1] Maurizio Leotta, Andrea Stocco, Filippo Ricca, Paolo Tonella. ROBULA+: An Algorithm for Generating Robust XPath Locators for Web Testing. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process (JSEP), Volume 28, Issue 3, pp.177–204.John Wiley & Sons, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1771