APIs are proposed as an alternative to page objects for reducing repetition, improving maintenance and readability in tests. APIs abstract the test code away from the page structure by making calls to functions that interact with the system under test via its API. While APIs can improve tests, they require close cooperation from developers to implement and do not completely replace page objects due to upfront costs.

1. APIs: A Better Alternative
to Page Objects
Eileen Xie
Head of Quality at PBworks
#sfse 8/23/11

2. Page Objects

3. What are they trying to
solve?

4. What are they trying to
solve?
• repetition
• maintenance
• readability

5. How well do they solve
them?

6. How well do they solve
them?
• repetition: poorly
• maintenance: poorly
• readability: poorly

7. Repetition

8. Repetition
• still too many steps
• some steps repeated over and over
homePage = HomePage.load();
loginPage = homePage.getLoginLink().click();
welcomePage = loginPage.login();
newTaskPage = welcomePage.getNewTaskLink().click();
newTaskPage.getTaskNameField().type(“Learn Selenium”);

9. Maintenance

10. Maintenance
• huge overhead
• QA needs to maintain and fix
• still dependent on page workflow
• still dependent on page structure/layout

11. Readability

12. Readability
• see repetition

13. What can we do
instead?

14. What can we do
instead?
• APIs!

15. APIs

16. What do they look like?

17. What do they look like?
createNetwork();
createNetworkWorkspace();
addNetworkUser();

18. What do they look like
under the hood?

19. What do they look like
under the hood?
function createNetworkFolder(name) {
curl(“http://pbworks.com/api_v2/op/
CreateNetworkFolder/name/” + name);
}

20. What?
• Where’s all the code?
• Why would we do this?
• How do the API calls get tested?
• How do we start?
• Wait a minute...

21. Where’s all the code?

22. Where’s all the code?
• in the product!
• really.

23. Why would we do this?

24. Why would we do this?
• less repetition
• makes tests clearer
• maintained by developers
• easier to read
• makes software more testable
• test execution speed
• better than straight SQL insertions

25. How do the API calls
get tested?

26. How do the API calls
get tested?
• separate tests!
• one test does the API stuff through the UI
dashboardPage.getNewTaskLink().click();
newTaskPage.getTaskNameField().type(“Learn Selenium”);
newTaskPage.getTaskDueDateField().type(“8/31/11”);
• every other test calls the API
createTask();

27. How do we start?

28. How do we start?
• figure out what the functions are
• talk to your devs!
• start with new functionality
• greenfield projects

29. Wait a minute...

30. Wait a minute...
• requires a ton of cooperation from devs
• huge upfront cost
• doesn’t actually replace page objects

31. Summary
• APIs are awesome
• ...and a pain in the ass to start using
• complimentary to page objects

32. More Info
• Our API: http://secure.pbworks.com/api_v2/
• Me: eileen.xie@pbworks.com