Using Common Selenium WebDriver instance

Question

I want use a common WebDriver instance across all my TestNG tests by extending my test class to use a base class as shown below but it doesn't seem to work :

public class Browser {

private static WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

public static WebDriver getDriver()
{
    return driver;
}
public static void open(String url)
{
    driver.get(url);
}
public static void close()
{
    driver.close();
}
}

I want to use the WebDriver in my test class as shown below, but I get the error message : The method getDriver() is undefined for the type GoogleTest:

   public class GoogleTest extends Browser
   {

      @Test
      public void GoogleSearch() {
     WebElement query = getDriver().findElement(By.name("q"));
     // Enter something to search for
     query.sendKeys("Selenium");
     // Now submit the form
     query.submit();
     // Google's search is rendered dynamically with JavaScript.
     // Wait for the page to load, timeout after 5 seconds
      WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(getDriver(), 30);
     // wait.Until((d) => { return d.Title.StartsWith("selenium"); });
     //Check that the Title is what we are expecting
     assertEquals("selenium - Google Search", getDriver().getTitle().toString());
   }
}

Solution 1

The problem is that your getDriver method is static.

Solution #1: Make method non-static (this will either need to make the driver variable non-static as well, or use return Browser.getDriver(); )

public WebDriver getDriver() {
    return driver;
}

Or, call the getDriver method by using Browser.getDriver

WebElement query = Browser.getDriver().findElement(By.name("q"));

Solution 2

You need to start your driver, one of many solution is to try @Before to add, Junit will autorun it for you.

    public class Browser {

        private WebDriver driver;

        @Before
        public void runDriver()
        {
            driver = new FirefoxDriver();
        }

        public WebDriver getDriver()
        {
            return driver;
        }

        public void open(String url)
        {
            driver.get(url);
        }

        public void close()        
        {
            driver.close();
        }
  }