Explicit vs. Implicit Waits in Selenium: Which Waiting Strategy Should You Choose?

Explicit vs. Implicit Waits in Selenium Webdriver

When encountering difficulties with WebDriver interactions, developers often question the appropriate use of explicit and implicit waits. To understand this concept, let's explore the differences between these two waiting strategies.

Implicit Waits

Implicit waits define a global timeout that applies to all findElement methods in a WebDriver instance. If an element is not immediately found, findElement methods will retry consistently until the specified timeout expires. However, the behavior of implicit waits is not well-documented and can vary depending on the browser or operating system.

Explicit Waits

Explicit waits, on the other hand, provide a more flexible and documented approach. These waits can be applied to any condition using the WebDriverWait class. Unlike implicit waits, explicit waits can be customized to retry at specific intervals, ignore certain exceptions, and even define success conditions as the absence of an element.

Why Use Explicit Waits?

Given their flexibility and clear behavior, explicit waits offer several advantages over implicit waits:

• Documented behavior: Explicit wait behavior is well-defined and consistent across different environments.
• Versatile: Explicit waits can handle a wide range of conditions, including element presence, visibility, or absence.
• Customized: Developers can finetune retry intervals, exception handling, and success criteria for explicit waits.

Code Examples

Implicit Wait:

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.id("myId"));

Explicit Wait:

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
WebElement element = wait.until(
        ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.id("myId")));

Conclusion

Explicit waits are the preferred choice for waiting strategies in Selenium Webdriver. Their documented behavior, versatility, and customizable nature make them a reliable option for ensuring stable and predictable web interactions. Implicit waits should be replaced with explicit waits to improve flexibility, clarity, and test reliability.

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