Question

I am a newbie programmer, very newbie..

I am trying to write a program to test our website and am using Java and Selenium.

The issue is I want to create a “table” or a “reference” that will allow me to store variables that can easily be called back and used in different calls.

I tried to use a HashMap but found it was no good because when I rerun my testing code there is a new hashmap each time. I want something that can store the values and remember them the next time I run the code.

I looked at creating a mysql table but I can’t figure out how to recall the variables out of the table once they have been created.

I hope this makes some sense. :0) Pls check out below if an example would be more useful
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here is an example of the hashmap that I was using:

HashMap idTable = new HashMap();
idTable.put("GroupName", new String("Group " + 
              Long.toHexString(Double.doubleToLongBits(Math.random()))));
element = driver.findElement(By.id("name"));
element.sendKeys((String)idTable.get("GroupName"));

FYI: The reason this doesn’t work for me is that I want to be able to wrap it in an “if” statement; to tell the computer that if the variable called “GroupName” already exists then don’t do it again.. however every time I run the script I make a call to the function [HashMap idTable = new HashMap();] and I don’t know how to NOT make that call because the HashMap isn’t saved anywhere.. it is created new each time.

Thanks,
Orli

not sure where to add this: but following the first suggestion here is what I did.

HashMap idTable;

try{

ObjectInputStream is = new ObjectInputStream(

new FileInputStream(“C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\Selenium local\hashmap.dat”));

idTable = (HashMap) is.readObject();

}

catch(Exception e){

idTable = new HashMap();

}

AND then:

try{

ObjectOutputStream os = new ObjectOutputStream (

new FileOutputStream(“C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\Selenium local\hashmap.dat”));

os.writeObject(idTable);

os.close();

}

catch (Exception e){

}

It works. :0) Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

You must store them somewhere not in the code, as the code goes bye-bye whenever the JVM shuts down. Two good options to do this are

• Using SQL database, research this more via google if you want
• Via files, simply writing your HashMap database to a file at the end of your program (Do Runtime.addShutdownHook, and pass it a thread whcih stores your hashmap to the file), and have it read from the file at the begining of the code (if the file is nonexistant, make a new one, and store an empty hashmap to it)