How to use log4j with selenium

Selenium is an open-source testing framework which supports browser automation. It provides a single interface allowing you to write applications in different programming languages such as python, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Perl, C#, and PHP.

Log4j is a reliable logging framework written in Java. It is mainly used to log messages within the software.

How is log4j different from standard output

In Java, System.out.println() can print the output to the console or a file. The output on the console cannot be restored as soon as you close the terminal.

However, log4j allows you to specify logging levels which includes DEBUG, ERROR, FATAL, INFO, TRACE, and WARN. It provides multiple appenders which means that you can direct your output to multiple locations such as a console, file, and even remote servers, simultaneously.

Components of log4j

log4j consists of the three main components.

Loggers

Loggers are used in the code to log messages. 

Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(MyClass.class);

Here,

Line 1: getLogger() creates a logger of the specified class. The method returns a suitable logger.

Appenders

Appenders are useful to write the logging information to the desired locations such as file, console, or even servers. Appenders are defined in the configuration file named log4j.xml.

Layouts

It determines the format of the log messages which can be specified in the configuration file. 

<PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n"/>

Line 1:

  • %d{} specifies the date format.

  • %t specifies the thread name.

  • %-5level is the level of the logging event.

  • %logger is the name of the logger which generated the logging event.

  • %msg replaces the message of the logging event.

The output would look like this.

08:25:45.689 [main] INFO packageName.className - A sample log message
Sample output

Note:

  • The project assumes that you have selenium, java, and log4j already set up in your system.

  • The project is created using Maven.

Sample log4j.xml file

Shown below, is a sample log4j.xml file as specified on the Apache documentation.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Configuration status="WARN">
    <Appenders>
        <Console name="Console" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
            <PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n"/>
        </Console>
    </Appenders>
    <Loggers>
        <Root level="info">
            <AppenderRef ref="Console"/>
        </Root>
    </Loggers>
    
</Configuration>

Explanation

Line 1: It specifies the xml standard version and the encoding specifies the encoding method.

Line 2: The status is set to WARN which means that the events at WARN or more severe level will be displayed.

Note: The status refers to the status of the internal log messages which the logging framework generates.

Logging levels organized from least to the most severe level are as follows:

TRACE < DEBUG < INFO < WARN < ERROR < FATAL < OFF.

Note: If you set the status to INFO, log4j will log levels including INFO, and above (WARN, ERROR, and FATAL messages)

Lines 4–8: This section defines the Appender in which you specify how the logging events should be written. We define a Console appender for the output to be written as standard output. The PatternLayout tag defines the format of the log messages.

Lines 10–14: It sets the level to INFO which means that events at INFO or a more severe level will be logged. The Root logger is set to Console appender specifying that all the generated log messages will be output to the console. You can choose to write the log messages to the file as well.

Main.java with loggers

A sample Main.java file along with the use of loggers is given below. 

package amazon.example;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger;
import io.github.bonigarcia.wdm.WebDriverManager;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions;
import org.openqa.selenium.JavascriptExecutor;


public class Main {
    private static final Logger logger = LogManager.getLogger(Main.class);

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();

        ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
        options.addArguments("start-maximized");
        options.addArguments("disable-infobars");
        options.addArguments("--disable-extensions");
        options.addArguments("--disable-gpu");
        options.addArguments("--disable-dev-shm-usage");
        options.addArguments("--no-sandbox");
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);

        WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 50);
        try {
            logger.info("Start Test");
            try
            {
                driver.get("https://www.google.com");
                logger.info("Navigated to Google");
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                logger.error("An error occurred ", e);
            }

            try
            {
                // Searching the tab 
                WebElement searchBox = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
                searchBox.sendKeys("OnCollisionEnter not called whenever the two colliders collide educative");
                searchBox.submit();
                logger.info("Searched for the answer");
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                logger.error("An error occurred ", e);
            }

            try
            {
                // Grab the first result
                WebElement firstResult = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.cssSelector(".g a")));
                String resultLink = firstResult.getAttribute("href");
                String resultText = firstResult.getText();
                logger.info("First searched result: " + resultText + " Link: " + resultLink);

                // Click the first result
                firstResult.click();
                logger.info("Opened the link");

                // Waiting for the page to load
                wait.until(webDriver -> ((JavascriptExecutor) webDriver).executeScript("return document.readyState").equals("complete"));

            }
            catch (NoSuchElementException e)
            {
                logger.error("An error occurred: ", e);
            }
        } 
        
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            logger.error("An error occurred", e);
        }
    }
}
Selenium web automation to get the link of a query

Explanation

  • Line 1: It specifies the name of the package to which the files belong.

  • Lines 3–14: These lines make all the necessary imports including the logging classes from Apache Log4j.

  • Lines 17–18: It declares a class named Main. A logger object is created which is essential to log statements to the console or a file as you specify in the log4j.xml file.

  • Line 20: public specifies that the main method can be accessed from anywhere in the program. static allows the main method to be called without creating any instance. void indicates that the main does not return any value. main method takes the parameter string args[], a list of string arguments. Doing this allows you to pass values from the command line to your java programs.

  • Line 22: It uses the WebDriverManager to download and set up the chromedriver.

  • Lines 24–31: These lines create an instance of ChromeOptions, configure it with various arguments, and then create a ChromeDriver instance with the options specified. It sets up the Chrome browser for automated testing.

  • Line 33: It creates an object named wait with a timeout of 50 seconds. It is used to wait for certain conditions to be fulfilled during automated test execution.

  • Lines 35–44: These lines first navigate to the Google homepage. driver.get() is wrapped inside a try catch block to handle exceptions occurred during test execution.

  • Line 39 & 43: logger.info in the try block is used to print the message that the navigation to Google is successful. In the catch block, the error gets printed using logger if the navigation fails.

  • Lines 46–57: These lines find the search bar on the Google homepage by using the name attribute. It then submit the query and logs the message indicating that the search is successful.

  • Lines 59–78: The try block waits for the first search result to become visible. It retrieves the URL of the first search, click on the link, and wait for the page to load. In the catch block, an error message is logged if the operations in the try block are not successful.

  • Lines 81–84: The error message is logged if the operations specified in the try block are not successful.

Note:

  • Check the terminal tab for the log messages.

  • Check the output tab for the automation.

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