SimpleSe Code Generator

SimpleSe Code generator is a maven plugin that augments your test automation experience when used with SimpleSe page objects.

In simple terms you create a json file that is compliant with SimpleSe that represents the elements in your web page, and instead of writing all the boiler plate code which is responsible for helping you interact with the page, you can make use of SimpleSe Code Generator to generate the code for you.

Pre-requisites

SimpleSe Code Generator requires that you use :

• JDK 8.
• com.rationaleemotions:simple-se-pageobjects 1.0.5 or higher.
• Selenium 3.141.59.

How to use.

To use the code generator, you basically need to do the following:

1. Add SimpleSe code generator as a plugin into your pom file under <build><plugins> section.
2. Add build helper plugin as a plugin entry as well, because you would like the generated code to be available in your classpath.

Here's how a pom file that has both these plugins look like:

<build>
<plugins>
  <plugin>
    <groupId>com.rationaleemotions.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>simplese-codegenerator</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.1</version>
    <configuration>
      <!-- basePackage represents the default package name prefix for all generated classes -->
      <basePackage>kung.fu.panda</basePackage>
      <!-- outputDirectory represents the location in your build path where the generated code would be writen to. -->
      <outputDirectory>generated-sources</outputDirectory>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
      <execution>
      <!-- We are binding this plugin to the "generate-test-sources" phase.-->
        <phase>generate-test-sources</phase>
        <goals>
          <!-- "generate" is the goal that invokes our plugin" -->
          <goal>generate</goal>
        </goals>
      </execution>
    </executions>
    <dependencies>
     <!-- This plugin requires a dependency on Selenium to be added because
     the generated code refers to some selenium classes -->
      <dependency>
        <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
        <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
        <version>3.14.0</version>
      </dependency>
    </dependencies>
  </plugin>
  <!-- The build helper maven plugin basically adds the generated code back into
  the classpath so that it can be used -->
  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.5</version>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <id>add-source</id>
        <phase>generate-test-sources</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>add-test-source</goal>
        </goals>
        <configuration>
          <sources>
          <!-- This is where the generated java classes are to be found which
          this plugin will compile and add back to the classpath. 
          The value specified here has to match the value of "outputDirectory" parameter of our code generator plugin entry. 
          -->
            <source>${project.build.directory}/generated-sources</source>
          </sources>
        </configuration>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>
</plugins>

3. Add your json files that you created into a directory called json (if this is not present in your project create this directory) under src/main/resources.
4. Now to generate the sources open up a command prompt and run this command mvn clean generate-test-sources (This command needs to be executed everytime you change the contents of your JSON file). Remember that the generated java classes will be found under target/generated-sources. Since these classes are generated, you don't need to check in them into your version control system.

Configuring the plugin

The plugin has the following configuration parameters which can be changed via the <configuration> section of the plugin.

1. basePackage - Represents the package prefix that is to used when adding package names to the generated classes. If nothing is specified, it defaults to com.rationaleemotions.pages.
2. baseFolder - Represents the folder under src/main/resources within which your json files reside. If nothing is specified, it defaults to json. Every sub-directory under json (or whatever you are using) would be added up as a package entry to the generated class. So for e.g., if you have a file called india/one.json within src/main/resources/json and if you provided your basePackage as kung.fu.panda, then the generated class (The class name is obtained from the name attribute of your json file) would have its package name as kung.fu.panda.india.
3. outputDirectory - Represents the directory that will contain the generated code. This directory is always created under target folder (which also happens to be the build output directory of maven and which can be cleaned up by running mvn clean). If not specified, it defaults to generated-sources. Remember to ensure that whatever value you provide to this parameter, the same value has to be referred to in your build-helper-maven-plugin's configuration section.

To see a live example, please refer to the sample project here

Building the code.

Once the changes are made, the integration tests can be executed using the command mvn clean -P run-its verify