Getting Error while trying to run example test of Selenium Webdriver (WebdriverJS)

Question

I am trying to run example test in file google_search_test.js located at \node_modules\selenium-webdriver\example. I am using WebdriverJS and only installed the selenium-webdriver NPM package in my system.

I have moved to that path location in command prompt and ran the following command: node google_search_test.js

I received the following error:

Error Description:

Path\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\example>node google_search_test.js

Path\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\testing\index.js:184
exports.describe.skip = global.describe.skip;
                                       ^
TypeError: Cannot read property 'skip' of undefined
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\kanasra\Desktop\Jaguars\Automation Testing\N
odeJs\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\testing\index.js:184:40)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Module.require (module.js:364:17)
    at require (module.js:380:17)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\kanasra\Desktop\Jaguars\Automation Testing\N
odeJs\node_modules\selenium-webdriver\example\google_search_test.js:24:12)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)

Answer 1

WebDriverJS (distributed as the npm package selenium-webdriver) uses Mocha as its test driver. Assuming you are in the directory where node_modules is located, you must run the test in Mocha:

mocha -t 5000 node_modules/selenium-webdriver/example/google_search_test.js

The above will work if you have Mocha installed globally (with npm -g install mocha). If you install it locally (with npm install mocha), you have to give the path to the local binary. On Unix systems you'd do:

node_modules/.bin/mocha -t 5000 node_modules/selenium-webdriver/example/google_search_test.js

I don't know where npm puts local binaries on Windows systems.

I suggest using -t 5000 to increase the timeout from the default 2 seconds to 5 seconds. On my system, the default timeout is too short and the test fails in the before hook while waiting for Firefox to start.

If you wonder why selenium-webdriver does not just list Mocha as a dependency this is because it is quite possible to use this package without using Mocha. So it is up to users of the package to install Mocha themselves, if they want to use it.