Explicit and implicit waiting are two types of waiting strategies used in Selenium WebDriver to handle synchronization issues in web applications. They help in dealing with elements that are not immediately available on the page when the test starts.
Explicit Wait:
Explicit wait is used when you know exactly which element you are waiting for and how long you want to wait for that element to be available. It uses the WebDriverWait class to wait for a specified condition to be true for a specified amount of time. Explicit wait is more reliable and is generally recommended when you know the expected conditions.
The main components of explicit wait are:
- WebDriverWait: It is a class that provides a way to wait for a condition to be true for a specified amount of time.
- ExpectedConditions: It is a class that provides a way to specify the condition to be true.
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("http://example.com")
# Explicit wait for an element to be present
wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 10)
element = wait.until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.ID, "myElement")))
Implicit Wait:
Implicit wait is a global setting that applies to all find_element and find_elements calls in a test. It tells the WebDriver to wait for a specified amount of time for an element to be available before throwing a NoSuchElementException. Implicit wait is less reliable than explicit wait because it applies to all elements in the test, not just the specific one you are waiting for.
The main components of implicit wait are:
ImplicitlyWait: It is a method used to set the amount of time the WebDriver should wait for an element to be available before throwing a NoSuchElementException.
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException
driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.implicitly_wait(10) # Set implicit wait to 10 seconds
driver.get("http://example.com")
try:
element = driver.find_element(By.ID, "myElement")
except NoSuchElementException:
print("Element not found")
In summary, the main difference between explicit and implicit waiting in Selenium is that explicit wait is used for waiting for a specific condition to be true for a specified amount of time, while implicit wait is a global setting that applies to all find_element and find_elements calls in a test. Explicit wait is more reliable and is generally recommended for specific scenarios, while implicit wait is less reliable but simpler to use for general cases.
