What is geckodriver? How to use it in Selenium Webdriver? [closed]

Question

What is geckodriver? How to use it in Selenium Webdriver?

Answer 1

GeckoDriver:

A Proxy for using W3C WebDriver-compatible clients to interact with Gecko-based browsers. Geckodriver provides HTTP API described by the WebDriver protocol to communicate with Gecko browsers, such as Firefox version above 47.

Marionette:

Marionette (the next generation of FirefoxDriver) is turned on by default from Selenium 3. Even if you are working with older versions of Firefox browser, Selenium 3 expects you to set a path to the driver executable by the webdriver.gecko.driver

For more details on Marionette click here.

Note: If you are using Selenium version below 2.53, you don't need gecko additional driver.

If you are not doing so, it will throw exception:
"java.lang.IllegalStateException: The path to the driver executable must be set by the webdriver.gecko.driver system property;"

How to use it?

If you are using Selenium 3.0 and you are running your test on Firefox; in this case, you have to download and set the path of the geckodriver as like chrome in selenium 2.0.

System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","path of/geckodriver.exe");
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

with RemotWebDriver:

System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver","path of/geckodriver.exe");
DesiredCapabilities capabilities=DesiredCapabilities.firefox();
capabilities.setCapability("marionette", true);
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(capabilities);

Answer 2

I'm not sure if you had googled it before you post your question here.

Anyway, first you need to know what Gecko is. Gecko is a web browser engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation. Where Gecko Driver is the link between your tests in Selenium and the Firefox browser.

GeckoDriver is a proxy for using W3C WebDriver-compatible clients to interact with Gecko-based browsers, in this case, Firefox.

As Selenium 3 will not have any native implementation of Firefox, we have to direct all the driver commands through Gecko Driver.

How to use it in Selenium? Check this link out.

Answer 3

Lot of article are present on internet regarding GeckoDriver and Selenium 3.

Gecko is a webbrowser-engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation

Gecko Driver is the connection between your tests in Selenium and the Firefox program. compatible clients to interact with Gecko-based browsers i.e. Mozilla Firefox for this situation. As Selenium 3 won't have any local usage of Firefox, we need to direct all the driver through Gecko Driver. Gecko Driver is an executable record that you need in one of the framework way before beginning your tests. Firefox program actualizes the WebDriver convention utilizing an executable called GeckoDriver.exe. This executable starts a server on your system. All your tests communicate to this server to run your tests. It translates calls into the Marionette automation protocol by acting as a proxy between the local and remote ends

I had created some demo on Selenium 3 using Gecko driver using Java. Github code link is provided in blog. Check out my blog for demo code