Using multiple instances of webDriver

Question

I have defined an object of Web driver in one class as

Static WebDriver driver;

and want to use that instance in another class to automate the browser. Is it possible? Or will I have to define drivers every time in each class?

I tried by defining a webdriver in another class as:

Static webDriver AnotherDriver; 

and then assigning it the value of other driver as:

AnotherDriver = ClassName.driver;

But I am getting nullPointer Exception when I using AnotherDriver.

And if I have to define a new driver in each class then I will get stuck, as I have defined some methods which I will be using in other class file and all of them use the driver defined in that class.

Any kind of suggestion is highly appreciated.

• dzieciou: You haven't described how do you initialize original driver variable. Uninitialized variables may cause NullPointerException.
• Ashwani Raj: okay. Actually what I am doing is, I have defined a startup function in one class and want to use that in other classes containing test cases. So my test cases are not running. Do I need to initialize webdriver with some value?
• dzieciou: Can you provide a minimal working code sample demonstrating what you did? That would ease.
• Yamikuronue: @razizcool4all If you're talking about Java/JUnit, this is where you'll want to use inheritance; if your test class inherits from a base class, and that base class defines a setup method, that setup method will be run before the test as well.
• Peter M. - stands for Monica: What is business case to have two separate webdriver instances? Seems a bit strange for me. Separate instances of same webdriver (using same browser) will likely share cookies and authorization, and will not be independent. My test are based on PageObject design pattern, and each pageobject shares webdriver. It works fine so far, just curious why you need separate webdrivers.

Answer 1

Approach 1

• Create a class, for example Hull.
• In the class is a protected variable WebDriver driver.
• In the class is a method setup() with a @Before annotation.
• In the method you has a condition: Is WebDriver null, initialize; else do nothing.
• Classes with test cases extends from Hull.
• Classes with test cases can use the variable driver.

Approach 2

• Create a class, for example Hull.
• In the class is a private variable WebDriver driver.
• In the class is a method getDriver().
• In the method you has a condition: Is WebDriver null, initialize; else do nothing.
• Classes with test cases extends from Hull.
• Classes with test cases can use the getDriver() method to use the WebDriver. Tip: Use always this method if you interact with the WebDriver, because so you are save that the WebDriver will be initialized.

• Ashwani Raj: is it possible that I open browser with a driver and access web contents with the another driver by defining it as: SecondDriver = classname.firstDriver
• Twaldigas: @razizcool4all I do not know. Try it! Print the value of firstDriver and secondDriver. If they have the same value, it should be possible. But why you want to do something like that?
• Ashwani Raj: I want to define the link to test in one function and open that link first whenever I have to run test cases. So here i came up with a problem that if I initiate browser with one driver we can't access it with other driver. So to resolve this I have to use another instance of the same driver.

Answer 2

you can pass the driver as argument to the methods , so no need to re create them.

Answer 3

Generally, it is bad practice to set the WebDriver instance as static.

You should create a base class that each of your test classes extend so that each test class has its own instance of WebDriver to be used (this is especially important with parallel execution), then just declare/define your WebDriver variable within that base class.