Why does the test pass when using the element? method to check the element's existence?

Question

How do you figure out if elements exist on a page?

The page has a link:

<a class="twitter" href="h.....">twitter</a>

My page object class is:

class Computer
  include PageObject

  link(:twitter_link, :class => "twitterrrrr")

  def element_exists?
    puts @browser.url
    twitter_link?        
  end       
end

This page is being used in a Cucumber step definition:

Then /the elements should exist/ do
  on(Computer).element_exists?
end

The above :class is purposefully wrong, it should really be equal to "twitter" (like the HTML above), but when I call twitter_link? the step still passes and doesn't fail.

When I call .exists? on twitter_link then the test fails, which is correct:

def element_exists?
  puts @browser.url
  twitter_link.exists?
end  

The desired outcome also occurred when I did:

def element_exists?
  puts @browser.url
  twitter_link?.should == true
end 

Anyone know why it passes when I call twitter_link? on its own? According to the page-objects gem docs there is supposed to be a method to check for existence out of the box. Is that referring to checking for existence in the page class and NOT on the actual page itself? That is what it seems like it's doing.

Answer 1

The problem is that twitter_link? simply returns true or false. Test frameworks like RSpec and Cucumber will not fail just because something returned false. They only fail if an assertion fails or an exception occurs.

In other words, instead of just calling the twitter_link? method, you need to check it in an assertion. For example:

# Examples using should syntax
page.twitter_link?.should == true
page.twitter_link_element.should exist

# Examples using expect syntax
expect(page.twitter_link?).to be_true
expect(page.twitter_link_element).to exist

If you want to check a series of elements, you can create an array of the element names and then iterate through them.

elements = [:twitter_link]
elements.each { |x| self.send( "#{x.to_s}?").should == true }

Note that when creating the array of elements, you do not want to use elements = [twitter_link]. By having twitter_link in the array, it will call the method to actually try to click the link. That is why you need to use something like a string or symbol instead. Storing the page object element would also be an option:

elements = [twitter_link_element]
elements.each { |x| x.exists?.should == true }