ChromeDriver

An NPM wrapper for simultaneously using multiple versions of Selenium ChromeDriver.

Add to Your Package.json

The easiest way to have multiple versions of chromedriver is to add the configuration to your package.json. Here's what it should look like:

{
    "name": "test-project",
    "version": "0.0.1",
    "description": "project to test chromedriver-multi",
    "dependencies": {
        "chromedriver-multi": "1.0.0",
    },
    "chromedriver": {
        "versions": ["2.21", "2.25"]
    },
    "scripts": {
        "install": "node -e \"require('chromedriver-multi/install').installFromEnv()\""
    }
}

The scripts section allows you to run the chromedriver-multi install during npm install:

    "scripts": {
        "install": "node -e \"require('chromedriver-multi/install').installFromEnv()\""
    }

The chromedriver section allows you to configure which versions to download. These values will be passed as environment variables to installFromEnv():

    "chromedriver": {
        "versions": ["2.21", "2.25"]
    }

Then when you run npm install in your project, you should see it download:

> [email protected] install /Users/test/workspace/test-project
> node -e "require('chromedriver-multi/install').installFromEnv()"

Downloading chromedriver versions [ '2.21', '2.25' ]
Downloading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.21/chromedriver_mac32.zip
Saving to /var/folders/tg/zvy3l4b55cz3w2mn1pwm8vmw0000gp/T/chromedriver/2_21/chromedriver_mac32.zip
Downloading https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/2.25/chromedriver_mac64.zip
Saving to /var/folders/tg/zvy3l4b55cz3w2mn1pwm8vmw0000gp/T/chromedriver/2_25/chromedriver_mac64.zip
Receiving...
Receiving...
Received 781K...
Received 782K...
Received 1570K...
Received 1564K...
Received 2354K...
Received 3138K...
Received 2348K...
Received 3639K total.
Extracting zip contents into /var/folders/tg/zvy3l4b55cz3w2mn1pwm8vmw0000gp/T/chromedriver/2_21
Copying to target path /Users/laszlopandy/dev/boxfish/editor-loader/e2e-test/src/test/node_modules/chromedriver/lib/chromedriver/2_21
Received 3132K...
Received 3916K...
Fixing file permissions
Received 4456K total.
Extracting zip contents into /var/folders/tg/zvy3l4b55cz3w2mn1pwm8vmw0000gp/T/chromedriver/2_25
Copying to target path /Users/laszlopandy/dev/boxfish/editor-loader/e2e-test/src/test/node_modules/chromedriver/lib/chromedriver/2_25
Fixing file permissions
Done. ChromeDriver binaries available at:
 => /Users/laszlopandy/dev/boxfish/editor-loader/e2e-test/src/test/node_modules/chromedriver/lib/chromedriver/2_21/chromedriver
 => /Users/laszlopandy/dev/boxfish/editor-loader/e2e-test/src/test/node_modules/chromedriver/lib/chromedriver/2_25/chromedriver

Building and Installing Manually

If you don't have a package.json you can do it manually. For example, to install chromedriver versions 2.21 and 2.25:

npm install chromedriver-multi
node -e "require('chromedriver-multi/install').install(['2.21', '2.25'])"

What this is really doing is just downloading particular releases from chromedriver's CDN.

The package has been set up to fetch and run ChromeDriver for MacOS (darwin), Linux based platforms (as identified by nodejs), and Windows. If you spot any platform weirdnesses, let us know or send a patch.

Custom binaries url

To use a mirror of the ChromeDriver binaries use npm config property chromedriver_cdnurl. Default is http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com.

Add property into your .npmrc file.

chromedriver_cdnurl=http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/chromedriver

Another option is to use PATH variable CHROMEDRIVER_CDNURL.

CHROMEDRIVER_CDNURL=http://npm.taobao.org/mirrors/chromedriver npm install

Running with Selenium WebDriver

var chrome = require('selenium-webdriver/chrome');
var chromedriverHelper = require('chromedriver-multi');
var binary = chromedriverHelper.getPathForVersion('2.21');
var driver = new chrome.Driver(
	new chrome.Options(),
	new chrome.ServiceBuilder(binary).build(),
	null);

(Tested for selenium-webdriver version 2.53.3)

Running via node

The package exports a getPathForVersion function that returns the path to the chromdriver binary/executable.

Below is an example of using this package via node.

var childProcess = require('child_process');
var chromedriver = require('chromedriver-multi');
var binPath = chromedriver.getPathForVersion('2.21');

var childArgs = [
  'some argument'
];

childProcess.execFile(binPath, childArgs, function(err, stdout, stderr) {
  // handle results
});

You can also use the start and stop methods:

var chromedriver = require('chromedriver-multi');

args = [
	// optional arguments
];
chromedriver.start('2.21', args);
// run your tests
chromedriver.stop();

Note: if your tests are ran asynchronously, chromedriver.stop() will have to be executed as a callback at the end of your tests

A Note on chromedriver

Chromedriver is not a library for NodeJS.

This is an NPM wrapper and can be used to conveniently make ChromeDriver available It is not a Node JS wrapper.

Contributing

Questions, comments, bug reports, and pull requests are all welcome. Submit them at the project on GitHub.

Bug reports that include steps-to-reproduce (including code) are the best. Even better, make them in the form of pull requests.

Author

Laszlo Pandy

Slightly adapted from Giovanni Bassi's chromedriver (wrapper for a single version of chromedriver): https://github.com/giggio/node-chromedriver/

Thanks for Obvious and their PhantomJS project for heavy inspiration! Check their project on Github.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.