Building WebDriver

Prerequisites

For all versions of WebDriver:

• The Java JDK 5 or above (download it from Oracle's site if it's not already on your computer)
• The source code (you may need to CheckOut the source from source control)

In addition, the InternetExplorerDriver needs some additional components and can only be fully built on Windows

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional or higher.
• "msbuild" should be on the PATH. This is most easily done by starting the "Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt" from the Start menu.

The build is based on rake, a well-known Ruby build tool. Provided you have all the gems required you can use that for building the project, though this isn't the recommended way to build. The bundled JRuby jar, invoked through the "go" wrapper, includes all dependencies without requiring any extra setup.

Building

The build script will determine which parts of WebDriver will be built. When there are native components that must be built, the build file will attempt to construct them before falling back to prebuilt binaries. Assuming you have checked out the source to $WEBDRIVER_HOME, now:

cd $WEBDRIVER_HOME   # Where the top level Rakefile is kept
go  
# or, on a UNIX system: 
./go

This will not only compile the source, but will also run any tests which need to be run. If these all pass, then you have successfully built WebDriver!

There are more detailed instructions about how the build system works in the CrazyFunBuild section.

By default, the output of the build is somewhat terse. A log of the java compilation stages is kept in "build/build_log.xml". You can also get more verbose output by adding "log=true" to the build targets. eg:

./go //java/client/test/org/openqa/selenium/support:test:run log=true

Finally, you can get even more verbose logging by modifying the Rakefile and commenting out the line that reads:

verbose false

The test logs are kept in the "build/test_logs" folder.

Tips

Building Selenium Server

You'll get a long way with just:

go //java/server/src/org/openqa/selenium/remote/server:server:uber //java/client/src/org/openqa/selenium:client-combined:project

That'll build the standalone "selenium server" jar and the client library too. The build output will tell you where the output files are being placed.

You can replace that second target with:

//java/client/src/org/openqa/selenium:client-combined:uber

The "uber" implicit targets build a single "uber jar" containing all the compiled java from the project, as well as all third party dependencies. The "project" implicit target is similar, but excludes third party dependencies.

Sources

//java/server/src/org/openqa/grid/selenium:selenium:project-srcs will give you some sources.

Building the Android driver

See Android Wiki

Useful Targets

All of these should be run using the "go" executable.

For everything:

For Java:

Useful parameters:

For Javascript:

Common Problems

Nothing Compiles

Make sure that you've got the JAVA_HOME environment setting properly set up. In addition, make sure that you can execute "rake" "java", "jar" and "javac" from the command line. If you're on Windows, you'll also need to be able to execute "devenv". You may need to install a JDK. If a C++ component doesn't build properly on Windows, make sure that you are actually using the VS2010 version of msbuild (this might not be the case, even if you're in a VS2010 Command Prompt)

All Firefox Tests Fail

Occasionally we change the protocol of how the java code in the Firefox driver talks to the extension. The main reason why all the firefox tests fail is because the user has installed a profile called "WebDriver". This should be deleted.

The following trouble-shooting steps might be useful:

1. Check that you have the latest version of the code (svn up)
2. Delete the WebDriver profile. The easiest way to do this is to start firefox using firefox -ProfileManager

Although it was necessary in the early days of webdriver development, it is now no longer necessary to install the webdriver extension manually. Indeed, doing so is more likely to be the root of hard to track down errors. It is strongly recommended that you do not install the firefox extension manually

The Build Works, but It's Very Slow

There have been reports of problems involving slow builds. Every test that runs does a DNS lookup to determine an alternative host name. If your network is not configured correctly, then this lookup might be very slow. To rectify this, modify the getAlternateHostName method in org.openqa.selenium.environment.webserver.Jetty7AppServer and hard code it to return a string that resolves to your machine that isn't "localhost"

I've Followed the Steps Above and All the Firefox Tests Still Fail

Other things to check:

• The FirefoxDriver is only compatible with Firefox 3 and above. Check that the first available version of firefox on the PATH is version 3 or later.
• The driver assumes that Firefox is installed in the default location for your OS. If Firefox is not in this location, then you need to set the VM property webdriver.firefox.bin or modify the PATH variable to include the directory with the firefox binary in it.
• On some platforms such as Linux, Firefox is started with a shell script. There have been reports that if your installation of Firefox wraps this shell script with another one the FirefoxDriver won't work properly. Consider calling the original Firefox script.

When do the prebuilds need re-building?

• Most changes to the atoms will lead to a new cpp/IEDriver/Generated/atoms.h file. If this is the case, the IEDriver prebuilds needs recompiling, in a Visual Studio command prompt on Windows.
• The iPhone driver, and ChromeDriver will also be affected by these changes, but let's be honest here, you probably aren't going to do anything about those.
• Any change to the C++ under cpp will either need the IEDriver, firefox-driver, or both to be rebuilt.