What is the use of ChromeDriver?

[Justin Drake]

I have been using both ChromeDriver and selenium-server-standalone for my Google Chrome tests. I have not seen any difference between the two.

What does ChromeDriver add over selenium-server-standalone for Google Chrome tests (or other browsers?!) ?

Thanks,

Justin

[Krishnan Mahadevan]

AFAIK,

ChromeDriver acts as the intermediate handler that enables selenium libraries to talk to the actual google chrome browser.

It is applicable only to Chrome browser.

Thanks & Regards
Krishnan Mahadevan

"All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive, fattening or in love with someone else!"

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[Justin Drake]

Thanks Krishnan.

The thing I don't understand is why my Google Chrome tests work without ChromeDriver (using only selenium-server-standalone).

Justin

[Krishnan Mahadevan]

Are you working with chrome browser as below ?

Selenium selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost",4444,"*chrome","http://www.google.com");

If yes, then you are technically speaking working on the "legacy selenium rc mode". This doesnt need a chromedriver binary.

However if you are working with Chrome browser as below:

ChromeDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

Then the chromedriver binary comes into play, because this is the Selenium2 approach.

Hope that clarifies.

Thanks & Regards
Krishnan Mahadevan

"All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive, fattening or in love with someone else!"

[Justin Drake]

I'm using the second approach, and it works without ChromeDriver. Bizarre.

[Ross Patterson]

What’s bizarre isn’t the result, it’s that Google decided to use “Chrome” as their browser’s name after the Mozilla Foundation used it for many years in Firefox.  Which results in :

 

·         In the Selenium RC API, “*chrome” means the Firefox browser.  So “Selenium selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost",4444,"*chrome","http://www.google.com");” launches Firefox.   To launch Google’s Chrome browser, use “*googlechrome” instead.

·         In the WebDriver API, the ChromeDriver launches Google’s Chrome browser.  Firefox is launched by the FirefoxDriver.

 

Ross

[Justin Drake]

Hi Ross,

I'm using the WebDriver API, *not* the Selenium RC API.

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[Daniel Wagner-Hall]

As long as you have chromedriver somewhere on your PATH,
selenium-server-standalone should just look it up and start it for
you, I believe. You could step through debugging the code, or look to
see whether there is a chromedriver process running during your tests,
to see what's happening.