Download a file using HTTP in WebDriver

Question

I am trying to use the WebDriver to navigate through a https site and download a file using WebDriver. When I did it like this, the file download dialog popped up.

WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.get("http://xxx/file1.txt");

I am wondering is there any way just call a method in WebDriver to download the file using regular https request without simulating the click?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There is not, at least not any way that works in all browsers. You might be able to configure some browsers (Firefox and Chrome) to download files to a specified location without prompting. However, for something like what you're asking about, you don't need Selenium at all. Any programmatic HTTP client will do. In Java, I'd recommend looking at HttpClient from Apache; in .NET using an HttpWebRequest will get the job done. Note that if the site you're downloading the file from requires authentication, you may need to specify custom headers in your HTTP request.

As a side note, you might want to reevaluate why you think you need to test downloading a file, if it's not as simple as executing an HTTP request outside the browser. This article discusses the issue in great detail, and provides a very well-reasoned argument why testing downloading a file is problematic, and often unnecessary.

Answer 2

Yes you can. You need to setup a custom Chromedriver profile:

profile = Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Profile.new
profile['download.prompt_for_download'] = false
profile['download.default_directory'] = download_directory

It will not prompt any dialogs. I had a more detailed answer on how to setup the download directory and validate that the file is of any given size here.

Additional chromedriver switches can be found here: http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/