Php-webdriver library is PHP language binding for Selenium WebDriver, which allows you to control web browsers from PHP.
This library is compatible with Selenium server version 2.x, 3.x and 4.x.
The library supports JsonWireProtocol and also implements experimental support of W3C WebDriver. The W3C WebDriver support is not yet full-featured, however it should allow to control Firefox via Geckodriver and new versions of Chrome and Chromedriver with just a slight limitations.
The concepts of this library are very similar to the "official" Java, .NET, Python and Ruby bindings from the Selenium project.
Looking for API documentation of php-webdriver? See https://php-webdriver.github.io/php-webdriver/
Any complaints, questions, or ideas? Post them in the user group https://www.facebook.com/groups/phpwebdriver/.
Installation is possible using Composer.
If you don't already use Composer, you can download the composer.phar binary:
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
Then install the library:
php composer.phar require php-webdriver/webdriver
Starting from version 1.8.0, the project has been renamed from facebook/php-webdriver to php-webdriver/webdriver.
In order to receive the new version and future updates, you need to rename it in your composer.json:
"require": {
- "facebook/webdriver": "(version you use)",
+ "php-webdriver/webdriver": "(version you use)",
}and run composer update.
To control a browser, you need to start a remote end (server), which will listen to the commands sent from this library and will execute them in the respective browser.
This could be Selenium standalone server, but for local development, you can send them directly to so-called "browser driver" like Chromedriver or Geckodriver.
Install the latest Chrome and Chromedriver. Make sure to have a compatible version of Chromedriver and Chrome!
Run chromedriver binary, you can pass port argument, so that it listens on port 4444:
chromedriver --port=4444Install the latest Firefox and Geckodriver. Make sure to have a compatible version of Geckodriver and Firefox!
Run geckodriver binary (it start to listen on port 4444 by default):
geckodriverSelenium server is useful especially when you need to execute multiple tests at once or your tests are run in different browsers - like on your CI server.
Selenium server receives commands and starts new sessions using browser drivers acting like hub distributing the commands among multiple nodes.
To run the standalone server, download selenium-server-standalone-#.jar file
(replace # with the current server version). Keep in mind you must have Java 8+ installed.
Run the server:
java -jar selenium-server-standalone-#.jarYou may need to provide path to chromedriver/geckodriver binary (if they are not placed in system PATH directory):
# Chromedriver:
java -Dwebdriver.chrome.driver="/opt/chromium-browser/chromedriver" -jar vendor/bin/selenium-server-standalone-#.jar
# Geckodriver:
java -Dwebdriver.gecko.driver="/home/john/bin/geckodriver" -jar vendor/bin/selenium-server-standalone-#.jar
# (These options could be combined)If you want to distribute browser sessions among multiple servers ("grid mode" - one Selenium hub and multiple Selenium nodes) please refer to the documentation.
Selenium server could also be started inside Docker container - see docker-selenium project.
When creating a browser session, be sure to pass the url of your running server.
For example:
// Chromedriver (if started using --port=4444 as above)
$host = 'http://localhost:4444';
// Geckodriver
$host = 'http://localhost:4444';
// selenium-server-standalone-#.jar (version 2.x or 3.x)
$host = 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub';
// selenium-server-standalone-#.jar (version 4.x)
$host = 'http://localhost:4444';Now you can start browser of your choice:
use Facebook\WebDriver\Remote\RemoteWebDriver;
// Chrome
$driver = RemoteWebDriver::create($host, DesiredCapabilities::chrome());
// Firefox
$driver = RemoteWebDriver::create($host, DesiredCapabilities::firefox());
// Microsoft Edge
$driver = RemoteWebDriver::create($host, DesiredCapabilities::microsoftEdge());Desired capabilities define properties of the browser you are about to start.
They can be customized:
use Facebook\WebDriver\Remote\DesiredCapabilities;
$desiredCapabilities = DesiredCapabilities::firefox();
// Disable accepting SSL certificates
$desiredCapabilities->setCapability('acceptSslCerts', false);
// Run headless firefox
$desiredCapabilities->setCapability('moz:firefoxOptions', ['args' => ['-headless']]);
$driver = RemoteWebDriver::create($host, $desiredCapabilities);They can also be used to configure proxy server which the browser should use. To configure Chrome, you may use ChromeOptions - see details in our wiki.
- See legacy JsonWire protocol documentation or W3C WebDriver specification for more details.
NOTE: Above snippets are not intended to be a working example by simply copy-pasting. See example.php for a working example.
For latest changes see CHANGELOG.md file.
Some basic usage example is provided in example.php file.
How-tos are provided right here in our GitHub wiki.
You may also want to check out the Selenium docs and wiki.
To take advantage of automatized testing you may want to integrate php-webdriver to your testing framework. There are some projects already providing this:
- Symfony Panther uses php-webdriver and integrates with PHPUnit using
PantherTestCase - Laravel Dusk is another project using php-webdriver, could be used for testing via
DuskTestCase - Steward integrates php-webdriver directly to PHPUnit, and provides parallelization
- Codeception testing framework provides BDD-layer on top of php-webdriver in its WebDriver module
- You can also check out this blogpost + demo project, describing simple PHPUnit integration
We have a great community willing to help you!
- Via our Facebook Group - If you have questions or are an active contributor consider joining our facebook group and contribute to communal discussion and support
- Via StackOverflow - You can also ask a question or find many already answered question on StackOverflow
- Via GitHub - Another option if you have a question (or bug report) is to submit it here as a new issue
We love to have your help to make php-webdriver better. See CONTRIBUTING.md for more information about contributing and developing php-webdriver.