java sendkeys Error keys should be a string

Question

I'm getting an error when trying to pass in a username and password to a form field using sendKeys. Below is my User Class followed by my test class. Does anyone know why the application is not passing a string?

org.openqa.selenium.WebDriverException: unknown error: keys should be a string

public class User {
    public static String username;
    public static String password;


    public User() {
        this.username = "username";
        this.password = "password";
    }

    public String getUsername(){
        return username;
    }

    public String getPassword(){
        return password;
    }

}

@Test
public void starWebDriver()  {
    driver.get(domainURL.getURL());
    WebElement userInputBox, passInputBox;
    userInputBox = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@name='email']"));
    passInputBox = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[@name='password']"));
    System.out.println("before sending keys");
    userInputBox.sendKeys(User.username);
}

Solution 1

You're accessing static properties that are never initialized (null) because the constructor is never called.

You can either set the static properties directly or take out the static context and initialize a User in your test.

Ex.

public class User {
    public String username;
    public String password;


    public User() {
        this.username = "username";
        this.password = "password";
    }

    public String getUsername(){
        return username;
    }

    public String getPassword(){
        return password;
    }

}


@Test
public void starWebDriver()  {
    User user = new User();

    driver.get(domainURL.getURL());
    ...
    userInputBox.sendKeys(user.username);
}

Solution 2

use

userInputBox.sendKeys(String.valueOf(User.username));