Selenium Implicit wait and Explicit Wait. does it really go on a loop and check for elements

Question

I implemented a loop with a counter to check elements are found repeatedly until 5 seconds or whatever Time I set. Why because I knew for one that selenium still has to poll/Scan the dom to find the element. I am not sure if selenium automatically is notified if there is a mutation in the dom itself.

I believe Implicit and explicit wait also does the same as I tried. It has to do repeated find operations till given timeout value to find if a element exists. But I rather wanted granular control over how quickly I perform the repeated scan so I can find it faster.

My Question is

1. is my assumptions correct ?.
2. Does implicit and explicit wait does repeated find, delayed by a certain default wait time before it does the find operation again?
3. Does it mean theoretically we can deprecate Explicit wait and implicit wait due the availability of fluent waits.?
4. Is there a default polling time in Implicit and explicit waits?.

Answer 1

Implicit wait implementation is itroduced in webdriver itself so how exactly it is implemented depends on the particulat webdriver manufacturer. When you set implicit wait in your code it just sends the request to webdriver saying: "Hey, set up this timeout and apply to every element that is looked up within the session". Default value is 0. So you can just make an experiment with creating some dynamic page that would add elements to DOM with certain frequency and check how the implicit wait is working in your particular webdriver.

Explicit wait (at least in Java binding) is implimented using FluentWait class where you can set up the frequency you would poll your DOM for certain conditions met. There is also WebdriverWait class that extends FluentWait where some predefined frequency (2 times a second) is used.

Answer 2

Implicitwait : We cannot define frequency of polling Explicitwait : can define frequency of polling

Reference : https://stackoverflow.com/a/27854319

Suggestion : explore how fluentwait is implemented and how its used . Fluent wait provides more customisation and more control to you compared to explicitwait

Answer 3

1. Explicit wait -- Try to Find, if not found, Wait until some time (My specified time) and error out ( unsaid assumption, keep polling meanwhile, with default time, which cannot be modified by users )
2. Implicit wait -- Try to Find, if not found, Wait for some time (Using my specified time) and try to find it again and error out
3. Fluent -- Try to Find, if not found, Wait and keep checking every few (Using my specified) seconds until this (user specified my own max) time and then error out