Ace your Protractor interview with these 50+ Protractor interview questions. Boost you confidence and land your dream job with this comprehensive guide.
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Chapter 14 : Protractor Interview Questions
OVERVIEW
Protractor is a tool developers use to create automated tests for their code. The Google Web Toolkit team developed it and used WebDriverJS, Selenium, Node.js, and Jasmine to make creating tests easier.
With the growing demand for high-end software on the web and mobile platforms, modern businesses are looking for new development and testing processes to deliver excellence. Frameworks like Protractor can help with this, as their compatibility with Selenium allows for end-to-end testing.
This comprehensive guide will delve into 50+ Protractor interview questions, covering everything from fundamental concepts to advanced techniques, equipping you with the knowledge to excel in your following interview. So, let's dive into the world of Protractor and prepare you to tackle any question that comes your way.
Note : We have compiled all Protractor Interview Question for you in a template format. Feel free to comment on it. Check it out now!!
Protractor is a JavaScript framework that tests Angular or AngularJS applications in real browsers, just like a real user would. It's built on Selenium WebDriver JS and has Angular-specific locator strategies. However, it was originally designed to test only AngularJS applications and also helps you write automation tests for non-Angular JS applications.
The purpose of Protractor is to automate the testing process by enabling testers to write scripts in JavaScript that can interact with the application's user interface. The framework allows them to verify that the application's functionality meets requirements.
To set up Protractor, we need to follow the following steps:
Synchronous code in Protractor executes sequentially and waits for each statement to complete before executing the next one. This type of code blocks other statements from running until it has completed its task.
On the other hand, asynchronous code in Protractor runs in parallel with other statements without waiting for the previous statement to complete before executing the next one. This type of code is also known as non-blocking because it does not block the execution of other statements while running
In Protractor, you can select elements on a web page in several ways. The following are the most common methods:
`getText()` and `getAttribute()` are two methods used to retrieve information about a selected element on a web page. While they both have similar names, there is one difference between them: the return value.
The `getText()` method returns the visible text of an element but not any attribute values. On the other hand, the `getAttribute()` method returns the value of a specified attribute of an element. This makes it easy to retrieve information about an element, such as its id, class, name, value, and so on.
In Protractor, a promise represents a value or event that may not have occurred yet. A promise can be created when performing an action that involves an asynchronous operation, such as clicking a button or waiting for an element to appear. You can then use this promise to handle the result of the operation, which can either be a success or a failure.
Although Protractor is explicitly designed for testing AngularJS applications, it can still be used to test non-Angular websites. However, you will need to disable some of its features and use alternative strategies.
The nice solution to this is to use an option called ‘mask,’ which allows us to ignore a locator or group of locators from our comparison. For this Playwright visual regression testing tutorial, let's continue to use the eCommerce website - the main area that stands out to me is the image carousel, which constantly rotates between different products.
Note : Ready to put your skills to the test? Run a test now and refer to our Protractor with Selenium documentation to navigate any challenges along the way!
The waitForAngularEnabled() function is used to turn off the AngularJS switch in the Protractor framework. This function accepts a boolean as a parameter. If set to false, the Protractor will not wait for Angular HTTP and timeout tasks to complete. This command can be used inside a spec or configuration file.
The `browser.actions()` method in Protractor can be used to chain multiple actions together and perform them as a single sequence. An instance of `ActionSequence` is returned by this method, which provides a way to chain multiple actions together and perform them as a single sequence.
TA locator strategy identifies elements on a page so that they can be interacted with programmatically. Protractor is a popular test automation framework for AngularJS applications that provides several locator strategies to find elements on a web page, including by their id, name, and XPath.
Both the `by.css()` and `by.xpath()` locator strategies are available in Protractor to find elements on a web page. The main difference between these two strategies is that the former uses CSS selectors, while the latter uses XPath expressions.
To interact with dropdown menus in Protractor, use the `protractor.ExpectedConditions` class to wait for the dropdown element to become clickable and then use the `element` and `element.all` methods to interact with the dropdown options.
The `browser.driver` is an instance of WebDriver, which is used to control a web browser through programmatic interfaces. It creates a new instance of a web browser and manages interactions with the browser during a Protractor test. The `browser.driver` is used to navigate to different URLs, interact with elements on the page, and retrieve information about the page.
Using the built-in `ExpectedConditions` class and the `browser.switchTo()` method, you can easily handle alerts and pop-ups in Protractor.
Here is an example of how to handle an alert box in Protractor:
// Wait for the alert to appear
const EC = protractor.ExpectedConditions;
const alertBox = EC.alertIsPresent();
browser.wait(alertBox, 5000, 'Alert box not found');
// Switch to the alert box and get the text
const alert = browser.switchTo().alert();
const alertText = alert.getText();
// Accept the alert
alert.accept();
In this example, the `ExpectedConditions` class is used to wait for an alert box to appear on the page. If an alert box doesn't appear within 5 seconds, then an error message will be displayed.
The `browser.actions()` method allows you to create a sequence of actions to be performed in a specific order. This can make it easier for you to perform mouse actions in Protractor.
When a test script runs faster than the web page being tested, errors such as element not found or stale element reference can occur. To handle synchronization issues in Protractor, you can use techniques such as Implicit Waits, Explicit Waits, Expected Conditions, and Control Flow.
Jasmine is a popular behavior-driven development framework for JavaScript that enables developers to write and organize tests in a structured manner. Jasmine provides developers with a set of functions and methods that allow them to write tests, organize test suites, and specify expectations in a structured manner.
There are several ways to debug Protractor tests. The following techniques can be used to troubleshoot your Protractor tests:
Protractor is a robust testing framework for Angular and AngularJS applications. It comes with a built-in reporting tool called Jasmine Reporters, which can provide several types of reports that allow you to analyze the results of your tests.
To generate reports with Protractor, you need to configure the Jasmine Reporters in your Protractor configuration file `(protractor.conf.js)`.
To run Protractor, we must first have Selenium WebDriver and Node.js installed. We can download the Protractor package using npm.
Protractor, Selenium Server, and Selenium WebDriver are three tools used together to automate end-to-end testing of web applications.
Protractor, together with Selenium, provides an automated test infrastructure that can simulate a user's interaction with an Angular application running in a browser or mobile device.
Both the tools (Protractor & Selenium) can help you with flawless browser automation. When you use Angular or AngularJS to build your UI, there is no rule that you must use Protractor for browser automation. It depends on your team's skills and requirements.
You can use plain Selenium for testing Angular applications; however, Protractor makes it easier to test Angular applications by implementing the Page Objects pattern. Protractor uses Automatic Waiting for elements and allows you to access specific Angular elements by their models or bindings.
Protractor is designed specifically for testing Angular and AngularJS applications. It provides Angular-specific features such as automatic waiting for Angular to finish rendering and the ability to locate elements by their AngularJS-specific selectors. While Protractor can be used to test non-Angular JS applications, there may be better choices for this purpose.
When deciding whether to use Protractor for testing AngularJS applications, consider the following. These are some of the features that make Protractor a good choice for testing AngularJS apps.
Protractor supports two popular behavior-driven development frameworks, Jasmine and Mocha.
In Protractor, a conf file is a JavaScript file used to specify configuration options for a Protractor test suite. The conf file is used to define settings such as the location of the test files, the browser to use for testing, and other options related to testing execution.
In Protractor, a "spec" file is a JavaScript file that contains the actual test code that will be run by the testing framework (e.g., Jasmine or Mocha). The spec file can be placed in any directory, but it must be named to reflect the feature being tested.
You can exclude a spec file from a Protractor run by using the "--exclude" command line option. The "--exclude" option takes a comma-separated list of file names or glob patterns that should be excluded from the test run.
Protractor can test directly against Chrome and Firefox without using a Selenium Server. To take advantage of this feature, set `directConnect: true` in your config file.
`Direct` connection allows your test scripts to communicate directly with Chrome Driver or Firefox Driver, bypassing any Selenium Server. If you attempt to use a browser other than Chrome or Firefox, an error will be thrown. If this is true, settings for `seleniumAddress` and `seleniumServerJar` will be ignored.
Protractor, an end-to-end test framework for AngularJS applications, supports all of the element location strategies given by Selenium and offers unique locators for identifying elements based on AngularJS attributes.
You can add a custom locator for Protractor by using `addLocator` method.
`browser.refresh` loads a page in the current browser and then uses mock modules to simulate an Angular environment. It assumes that the page being loaded has Angular on load; if it does not, you can use the wrapped webdriver directly.
In Protractor, two methods are used to load a webpage: "GET" and "NAVIGATE." While these two methods have similar purposes, their functionalities differ slightly.
The `GET` method, commonly used when accessing HTML pages, loads a webpage by directly entering the URL of the page. The `GET` method works in much the same way as typing a URL into the address bar of your web browser.
On the other hand, the "NAVIGATE" method is used to navigate to a new page by clicking a link or button on the current page. When you use the "NAVIGATE" method in Protractor, the browser will simulate a user clicking on the specified link or button and loading the new page.
We can find all the links on a webpage using the tagName 'a'. All the links are formed with an anchor tag 'a', and all have an 'href' attribute with a URL value.
By fetching the value of the 'title' attribute, we can verify the tooltip text using the Protractor.
The mouse actions that can be performed using Protractor are as follows:
To get the actual text, we need to resolve this Promise. When using Java, the `getText()` method will return the corresponding text from an element. However, in Protractor, the `getText()` method returns an object that looks something like [objectObject]. The syntax would be:
element.getText().then(function (text) {
console.log(text);
});
To get the text from a textbox, use the `getAttribute()` method by passing the argument as a value. The `getAttribute()` method returns a promise which contains a String so that we can get the text from a textbox in Protractor. The syntax would be:
element(by.xpath("text box xpath").getAttribute("value")).then(function(textValue){
console.log(textValue)
});
We can use the following commands to determine whether an element exists on a webpage with the `isPresent` function. The syntax would be:
// Element exists
expect(element(by.binding(‘person.name’)).isPresent()).toBe(true);
// Element not present
expect(element(by.binding(‘notPresent’)).isPresent()).toBe(false);
In Protractor, you can use the built-in `browser.switchTo().alert()` method to handle alerts. This method allows you to switch the focus of the browser to an alert dialog and perform actions on it, such as accepting or dismissing it. To accept an alert in Protractor, use the `accept()` method of the `Alert` object.
To cancel an alert in Protractor, you can use the `dismiss()` method of the Alert object. This action can be performed by calling the `Alert.dismiss()` function or by simply typing `alert.dismiss()`.
The dismiss() method will close the alert dialog, whether or not it was triggered by a "Cancel" or "No" button.
In Protractor, you can use the `ExpectedConditions` class to wait for a specific element to be present or visible on the page before continuing your test. This can be useful if you want to stop the page from loading until a certain element is loaded and then proceed with your test to save bandwidth and increase speed.
Protractor is designed to work with a variety of web browsers, including:
You can get the current URL in Protractor by using the `getCurrentUrl()` method of the `browser` object. Here's an example:
// Navigate to a URL
browser.get('https://www.lambdatest.com');
// Get the current URL
browser.getCurrentUrl().then(function(url) {
console.log('The current URL is: ' + url);
});
This code will navigate to the specified URL and then use the `getCurrentUrl()` method to retrieve the current URL. The returned promise must be handled using `.then()`.
Add a `capabilities` object to your configuration file to set the gecko driver path in Protractor. Here's an example for this:
exports.config = {
// Other configuration options...
capabilities: {
browserName: 'firefox',
'moz:firefoxOptions': {
// Set the path to the Gecko driver executable
args: ['--marionette', '--disable-popup-blocking', '--disable-extensions'],
binary: '/path/to/geckodriver'
}
},
// Other configuration options...
}
In this example, we're using the capabilities object to set Firefox as the browser and point to the Gecko driver executable using the binary property. You can adjust the path to point to your Gecko driver executable's location.
We can use the`headless` option of the `chromeOptions` object to run in headless browser mode in Protractor. Here's an example:
exports.config = {
// Other configuration options...
capabilities: {
browserName: 'chrome',
chromeOptions: {
args: ['--headless', '--disable-gpu']
}
},
// Other configuration options...
}
}
This example sets the `capabilities` object to use Chrome as the browser, and it sets the `args` option to `['--headless', '--disable-gpu']`. The -headless switch tells Chrome to run in headless mode, and the `--disable-gpu` option is required for running Chrome in headless mode on some platforms.
Yes, you can perform drag and drop actions in Protractor using the browser.actions() method. Here's an example:
// Find the source element to drag
var sourceElement = element(by.id('sourceElement'));
// Find the target element to drop onto
var targetElement = element(by.id('targetElement'));
// Perform the drag and drop action
browser.actions().dragAndDrop(sourceElement, targetElement).perform();
}
To perform a drag and drop action, first, locate the source element that you want to drag by calling `element(by.id())`. Then, locate the target element that you want to drop onto. Finally, use the `browser.actions().dragAndDrop()` method to perform the drag and drop action, passing in the source and target elements as arguments.
Also Read: A list of 70 Cucumber Interview Questions and Answers
Several types of failures can occur in Protractor tests:
Protractor is a widely used end-to-end testing framework for AngularJS applications. It includes several timeouts that can be configured to control how long Protractor waits for certain conditions to be met. The most commonly used timeouts are:
Yes, you can use TypeScript with Protractor. TypeScript is an extension of JavaScript that provides many valuable features for large-scale development projects. To use TypeScript with Protractor, you will need to install TypeScript and configure your project to use it.
You can use the expect function from the Jasmine testing framework in Protractor to assert that certain conditions are true. The `expect` function takes an actual value and a matcher function as arguments and returns an `Expectation` object that you can use to make assertions.
In Protractor, timeouts can be handled in a few different ways depending on the situation. Here are a few examples:
Testing user interactions such as mouse clicks and keyboard inputs is an essential part of functional testing. Protractor provides a set of functions that allow testers to interact with elements on the page programmatically. For example, to simulate a mouse click on an element, we can use the `click()` function of the `ElementFinder` object.
In Protractor, testing for data binding is crucial for ensuring that the data displayed on the page is correctly bound to the application's data model. There are several ways to test for data binding with Protractor, and the approach taken will depend on the specific needs of the test.
One common approach to page validation is to read data from the page and compare it to the expected data. For example, suppose a field displays data that should be coming from a specific property of the data model. In that case, we can use the `getText()` function of the `ElementFinder` object to read that value from the page and then compare it against our expected value.
To test animations and transitions with Protractor, you can use the browser.wait() function to pause your tests until specific animation events occur.
One of the main advantages of using Protractor is the ability to automate testing tasks. Automating repetitive testing saves time and effort compared to manual testing, ensuring that all parts of the application are thoroughly tested.
Automated tests are more consistent and reliable than manual testing, which can introduce human error. Automated tests run the same way every time, regardless of who executes them. Consistency is essential when testing a large and complex application with many features.
Note : Learn how to debug Protractor tests for Selenium test automation with this detailed guide!
Protractor provides built-in support for generating test reports using popular reporting frameworks like Jasmine and Mocha. This means that you don't have to worry about configuring these tools yourself, allowing you to focus on writing tests instead of building reports.
Jasmine is a popular behavior-driven development (BDD) testing framework for JavaScript that provides a syntax for writing tests that is easy to read and understand. It is frequently used in conjunction with Protractor to test AngularJS applications.
Protractor, the newest addition to the AngularJS testing framework, integrates with Jasmine by providing a built-in Jasmine test framework adapter. This adapter allows Protractor to run Jasmine tests seamlessly and offers additional functionality for testing AngularJS applications.
When testing for responsiveness in Protractor, you need to check how your application behaves and appears across different screen sizes and resolutions. You can follow these steps to check the responsiveness.
Note : We have compiled all Protractor Interview Question for you in a template format. Feel free to comment on it. Check it out now!!
Automated testing is essential to software development. Parallel Execution helps testers achieve maximum software quality faster, resulting in faster delivery of better applications. Angular applications, in particular, are best tested with Protractor and Selenium. As a result, we urge you to be careful when searching for job opportunities. We believe our efforts will pay off in your quest to ace the Protractor interview and land your dream job.
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Reviewer's Profile
Harshit Paul
Harshit is currently the Director of Product Marketing at LambdaTest. His professional experience spans over 7 years, with more than 5 years of experience with LambdaTest as a product specialist and 2 years at Wipro Technologies as a certified Salesforce developer. During his career, he has been actively contributing blogs, webinars as a subject expert around Selenium, browser compatibility, automation testing, DevOps, continuous testing, and more.
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