Create Fake Test Data for Selenium Tests using Java Faker API

Test data is necessary in testing an application, in automation the test data will be either hard-coded or provided from the external sources like Excel, CSV, XML, Database and etc. If its live data that needs to be fetched from sources like Database we have to follow it, there is no other go.

But when we are providing the test data from external files for validating certain functionalities that data needs to be revised after some iterations. It takes lot of manual effort of tester to re-create the test data.

Java Faker API:

In order to reduce the manual effort in creating the test data, we use Java Faker API. Java Faker API is Java library which generates data related to different categories like Company, Internet, Human, Numbers, Food, Finance, Telephone and etc. this covers almost all the type of data that a typical software application would require.

Configure Java Faker API in Selenium Project:

Add Java Faker API maven dependency in the pom.xml (we are using Maven project) as shown below.

Create separate utility class that generates the fake data using Java Faker API library. In the below class we created methods that generate first name, last name, password, email and etc.

In the below Selenium test, we are automating facebook account create form. In this test we need to enter first name, last name, email Id and password.

We created an object to JavaFakerAPI utility class and called the required methods in the selenium tests.

Run this test many times and every time unique values will be generated and we can run this selenium test without changing the test data every time we execute it.

This is how we can reduce the manual effort in creating the new test data every time.

#HappyLearning #HappyTesting