WebDriver Actions.Perform() or Actions.Build().Perform()

Question

I use Selenium2 WebDriver with C#

Actions.Build - returns a composite IAction which can be used to perform the actions. (IActions has a Perform method to execute the actions) Actions.Perform - Performs the currently built action.

In most of the examles use Actions like this:

new Actions(IWebDriverObj).actions...Build().Perform()

but this works as well

new Actions(IWebDriverObj).actions...Perform()  //no Build before Perform

Is it necessary to use the Build() before the Perform() or Build() is for some compatibility purpose only?

Thanks in advance for the answers

Answer 1

Always keep in mind that Selenium is open source.

The source of WebDriver/Interactions/Actions.cs is here, clearly you can see Perform() includes Build(), so the answer is no, you don't need to build before perform, unless you want to pass the built IAction around without performing.

/// <summary>
/// Builds the sequence of actions.
/// </summary>
/// <returns>A composite <see cref="IAction"/> which can be used to perform the actions.</returns>
public IAction Build()
{
    CompositeAction toReturn = this.action;
    this.action = new CompositeAction();
    return toReturn;
}

/// <summary>
/// Performs the currently built action.
/// </summary>
public void Perform()
{
    this.Build().Perform();
}

Also, for anyone else reading this post:

Java binding: build() is included in perform(). Source: interactions/Actions.java

Ruby/Python: only have perform, no such thing called build. Source: action_chains.py, action_builder.rb

Answer 2

Actually, the .perform() includes a .build().

So you can only write : new Actions(IWebDriverObj).actions....perform()