Using Array as Parameter for Test Method

Question

Commonly the parameters for the test method are as follows

 @Test //Test method (dataProvider="login")
public void TestCase1(String field1, String field2)
{
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//[@id='username']")).sendKeys(field1);
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//[@id='password']")).sendKeys(field2);
}

The result is click on this image

Instead of specific (String field1, String field2) as the paremeters, is it possible for me to use array as the parameters (String[] fields)? (please see the code below)

 @Test //Test method (dataProvider="login")
public void TestCase1(String[] fields)
{
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//[@id='username']")).sendKeys(field[0]);
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//[@id='password']")).sendKeys(field[1]);
}

The result is click on this image

From the results, there is slightly difference in terms of the formatting.

My question is does the both of the methods produce the same meaning?

difference is just in the string representation. when you ran your test code, did you notice any difference in how the form was populated? — gagan singh, Jul 03 '18 at 15:15

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 03 '18 at 15:46

There is clearly a difference.

In first approach you are using String as an Object.

The Second approach is using String array. You need to understand the basic difference between Arrays and String.

You can refer arrays as a container which contains multiple Object/things of same type. And arrays obviously have fixed size in nature.

Now array can be of String type, int type and etc..

When you write String field1 , that's a single String object.

But When you write String[] fields it is array of String objects, meaning it can have multiple String objects and you need to declare the size at the time of Initialization.

Though in your scenario , both will produce the same result. Having said that you can increase the length of String[] and can use fields[0], fields[1], fields[2], fields[4] and so on..

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 03 '18 at 15:15

Both of these methods will produce the same result.

However, since it seems you are always expecting exactly two arguments, I believe it makes more sense to use two separate parameters instead of the array. It improves readability since you know exactly what each parameter is, and it forces any calling functions to pass the proper amount of arguments.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 03 '18 at 16:02

Both methods should work. The first one is more readable (you should change the names of the parameters as well ). It would also be a good idea to create a class like LogIn which has username and password as fields so it could be extended in the future or reused by several test that require such information, create a builder for test users and so on.

Using Array as Parameter for Test Method

3 Answers3