Introduction
Date pickers are essential in web applications for easy date selection. They vary in how they work across different browsers, devices, and new versions. Also, each development environment and third-party control provider has its unique approach to handling dates.
Testing these date pickers can be tough because they’re interactive and have complex ways to input data.
However, there’s good news. Playwright, a great testing framework created by Microsoft, makes this easier. It lets developers effectively test how date pickers work and confirm they’re performing correctly. From my experience, using Playwright and TypeScript for testing Date Pickers is simpler compared to other tools I’ve tried. Playwright offers many ways to find and handle date pickers.
Locating and Interacting with Date Pickers
Playwright provides methods for finding and working with date picker elements. To identify a date picker, you can use the findByLabelText method and pass the label text or placeholder text associated with the element. Playwright then searches through the browser’s document object model or DOM to find the element you are interested in.
For instance, to locate a date picker labelled “Select Date”, you would use the following code:
const datePicker = browser.findByLabelText('Select Date');Once the date picker is identified, you can interact with its input components to select the desired date. Playwright and Typescript offer methods for selecting specific dates, such as selectDateByText(‘2023-10-04’), which chooses the date 4th of October, 2023. This can make creating and maintaining tests easy.
Validating Date Input and Range
Playwright lets programmers make sure the date you pick is correct and follows certain rules. For instance, if you need to check that the date you chose is within a certain period, you can use a tool called clickOnText. This tool clicks on the part of the date picker where you enter the date. After that, you can get the date you picked by using something called the textContent property. This helps you see if the date is the right one within the range you need.
const datePicker = browser.findByLabelText('Select Date');
datePicker.clickOnText();
const selectedDate = datePicker.textContent;
if (selectedDate < '2023-10-01' || selectedDate > '2023-10-31') {
throw new Error('Invalid date selected');
}This code snippet verifies that the selected date falls within the range of 1st of October and 31st of October 2023.
Handling Dropdowns and Input Fields
Some date pickers utilise drop down lists or input fields for date selection. Playwright allows you to work with these components using the click or type methods. For instance, to select a month from a drop down within a date picker, you can use the following code:
const monthDropdown = datePicker.querySelector('[aria-label="Month"]');
monthDropdown.click();
monthDropdown.selectOption('October');This code snippet selects the month of October from the drop down within the date picker, and it is triggered on the click event.
Automating Complex Date Picker Scenarios
In real life, when we use date pickers (like those calendars you click on to pick a date) in websites or apps, things can get pretty complicated. We might have to deal with a mix of different ways to use these date pickers. For example, you might click on one to choose your birthday and then another one for today’s date. Because there are so many different ways we can interact with these date pickers, it’s important to have a detailed plan to test them all. This means checking to make sure every type of interaction works just as it should, whether it’s clicking, typing in a date, or something else. This way, we can be sure that the date pickers are easy and reliable for everyone to use.
Playwright enables developers to run intricate test cases using declarative syntax and manipulation methods. Consider an example of testing a date picker that requires selecting a date, validating its range, and submitting a form:
// Select the date
const datePicker = browser.findByLabelText('Select Date');
datePicker.clickOnText();
const selectedDate = datePicker.textContent;
if (selectedDate < '2023-10-01' || selectedDate > '2023-10-31') {
throw new Error('Invalid date selected');
}
// Submit the form containing the selected date
const form = browser.findByTagName('form');
form.submit();This code snippet demonstrates the ability to handle multiple date picker interactions within a single test script. It selects a date within the valid range, verifies the selected date, then finally submits the form containing the selected date.
Conclusion
Using Playwright and TypeScript to test native Date Pickers is a powerful combination.
Playwright’s methods for finding, interacting, and validating date picker elements streamline the testing process. TypeScript’s type system ensures type safety and enhances code readability, making it an ideal choice for developing comprehensive and maintainable test scripts.
By using Playwright and TypeScript, developers can effectively automate date picker interactions, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of their web applications.
I have written several blog posts about Playwright: – Exploring Playwright’s Trace Viewer, Testing Popup Windows with TypeScript and Playwright and Learn how to create Playwright Tests.
The official Playwright documentation can be found here: – https://playwright.dev/docs/intro.
