@wdio/globals

What is @wdio/globals?

@wdio/globals is a package that provides global variables and functions for WebdriverIO, a popular automation test framework. It simplifies the setup and usage of WebdriverIO by offering a set of globally accessible utilities.

What are @wdio/globals's main functionalities?

Global Browser Object

The global `browser` object allows you to interact with the browser instance directly. This includes navigating to URLs, interacting with elements, and more.

browser.url('https://example.com');

Global Expect Function

The global `expect` function is used for assertions in your tests. It allows you to make assertions about the state of the browser or elements within it.

expect(browser).toHaveTitle('Example Domain');

Global $ and $$ Functions

The global `$` and `$$` functions are shorthand for selecting single and multiple elements, respectively. They simplify the process of element selection in your tests.

const element = $('selector'); const elements = $$('selector');

Other packages similar to @wdio/globals

selenium-webdriver

Selenium WebDriver is a widely-used tool for browser automation. It provides a more low-level API compared to WebdriverIO, requiring more boilerplate code to achieve similar tasks.

cypress

Cypress is an end-to-end testing framework that offers a more developer-friendly experience with automatic waiting and a more intuitive API. However, it is limited to testing within the browser and does not support multiple browser instances.

nightwatch

Nightwatch.js is an end-to-end testing framework built on top of Selenium WebDriver. It provides a higher-level API compared to Selenium WebDriver but is not as feature-rich or user-friendly as WebdriverIO.

README

WDIO Globals

A helper utility for importing global variables directly

In your test files, WebdriverIO puts each of these methods and objects into the global environment. You don't have to import anything to use them. However, if you prefer explicit imports, you can do import { browser, $, $$, expect } from '@wdio/globals' and set injectGlobals: false in your WDIO configuration.

The following global objects are set if not configured otherwise:

• browser: WebdriverIO Browser object
• driver: alias to browser (used when running mobile tests)
• multiremotebrowser: alias to browser or driver but only set for Multiremote sessions
• $: command to fetch an element (see more in API docs)
• $$: command to fetch elements (see more in API docs)
• expect: assertion framework for WebdriverIO (see API docs)

Note: WebdriverIO has no control of used frameworks (e.g. Mocha or Jasmine) setting global variables when bootstrapping their environment.

Install

To install the package, run:

npm i @wdio/globals --save-dev

Usage

You can implicitly import WebdriverIO primitives as following:

import { browser, $, $$, expect } from '@wdio/globals'

describe('my test', () => {
    // ...

    it('can do something', async () => {
        // ...
    })

    // ...
})

TypeScript

If you have a TypeScript project you can propagate the WebdriverIO namespace by adding this package to the types list, e.g.:

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "types": ["node", "@wdio/globals/types"]
    }
}

For more information on WebdriverIO Globals, check out the docs.