10-Minute Guide to Object Oriented Programming

Object Oriented (OO) simplified by examples

The articles in the 10-minute guide series:

• 10-Minute Guide to Git Version Control for Testers
• 10-Minute Guide to Set up Test Automation using Selenium WebDriver with Ruby
• 10-Minute Guide to Object Oriented Programming

Most modern programming languages support object-oriented programming (OOP). Mastering OOP is a must for software engineers and test automation engineers nowadays. This quick guide is intended for non-programmers to get a quick understanding of OO, in particular, to become automated testers.

OOP sounds like a complicated concept, at least for me when I was 13 years old. It turned out to be quite simple after my father illustrated with this example:

Car is a class, a type of something, it has the following two functions (plus many more…):

• accelerate
• brake

My car (the one in my garage) is an object of Car, it can ‘brake’ and ‘accelerate’. I can physically drive it.

Now have a think about the statements below:

my_car = Car.new
my_car.accelerate
your_camry = Car.new
your_camry.brake

.new creates an instance of a Class, in this case, Car. The returned instance is also known as an Object.

In Ruby, everything is an object (or class)

Ruby is a pure Object-Oriented language, comparatively, Java is not as it has primitive types. Learning OO with Ruby is easier.

a_string = "Ruby is cool"
a_string.size  # => 12
iphones = ["iPhone 4s", "iPhone 5S", "iPhone 5C"]
iphones.sort #=>["iPhone 4s", "iPhone 5C", "iPhone 5S"]

a_stringis an object of String class, and iphones is an object of class Array. Here is how to find out an object’s class.

a_string.class # => String
iphones.class  # => Array

The reason we are able to use.size and .sort is because these functions are defined in the String and Array classes respectively.

an_object.function

Class Inheritance

Inheritance is one type of relationship between two classes. For example, seagulls and parrots are both birds, thus they share the common features of a bird.

The code below defines three classes: Bird, Seagull, and Parrot.

class Bird
  def fly
    puts "I am flying"
  end
end
class Seagull < Bird
end
class Parrot < Bird
  def speak
    puts "if someone teaches me"
  end
end

Inheritance can be described as “is-a” relationship. For example, we can say “Parrot is a Bird” and “Seagull is a Bird”, but not “Parrot is a Seagull”.

An object of a child class can invoke a function defined in the parent class.

a_seagull = Seagull.new
a_seagull.fly    # => "I am flying"
my_parrot = Parrot.new
my_parrot.fly    # => "I am flying"
a_seagull.is_a?(Bird) # => true
my_parrot.is_a?(Bird) # => true

As you can see, by using inheritance, the code (defined in functions, such as flyin Birdclass) can be reused.

A child class can define its exclusive functions, such as speak in Parrot class.

my_parrot.speak  # => "if someone teaches me"
a_seagull.speak # NoMethodError: undefined method `speak' for #<Seagull:0x..>

Child Class Can Override Behaviours

A function defined in a class is also known as “Behaviour”. A child class can override the behavior defined in its parent class, like the example below.

class Ostrich < Bird
  def fly
    puts "I'd rather run"
  end
end
ostrich = Ostrich.new
ostrich.is_a?(Bird) # => true
ostrich.fly #=> "I'd rather run"

This has a fancy term, Polymorphism, one of the most asked questions in programmer interviews. Don’t over-think it, do some OO practices, and you will get a deep understanding. For now, at least for test automation engineers, my one-line explanation will do.

Use your newly learned OO knowledge to understand Automated Test Script

Below is a raw Selenium WebDriver test that follows Maintainable Automated Test Design.

it "Select One-way trip" do
    driver.get("https://travel.agileweay.net")
login_page = LoginPage.new(driver)
    login_page.enter_username("agileway")
    login_page.enter_password("testwise")       
    login_page.click_sign_in
  
    flight_page = FlightPage.new(driver)
    flight_page.select_trip_type("oneway")
    flight_page.select_depart_from("Sydney")
    flight_page.select_arrive_at("New York")
    flight_page.select_depart_day("02")
    flight_page.select_depart_month("May 2023")
    flight_page.click_continue
expect(page_text).to include("2023-05-02 Sydney to New York")
  end

Two classes:

These two Page Classes represent the two web pages you see in the browser.

• LoginPage
• FlightPage

Three objects:

• driver , the instance of Selenium WebDriver
• login_page and flight_page are instances of LoginPage and FlightPage respectively.

Several functions:

You can think a function in a page class is an operation that a user can perform on the web page.

• enter_username , enter_passwordand click_sign_in in LoginPage class
• select_trip_type , select_depart_from , select_arrive_at , select_depart_day , select_depart_month , and click_continue in FlightPage class

What does a page class look like?

Here is the content of flight_page.rb file, which defines FlightPage class.

require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "abstract_page.rb")
class FlightPage < AbstractPage
def initialize(driver)
    super(driver, "") # <= TEXT UNIQUE TO THIS PAGE
  end
def select_trip_type(trip_type)
    driver.find_element(:xpath, "//input[@name='tripType' and @value='" + trip_type + "']").click
  end
def select_depart_from(from_port)
 Selenium::WebDriver::Support::Select.new(driver.find_element(:name, "fromPort")).select_by(:text, from_port)
  end
  
  # more functions ...
def click_continue      
    driver.find_element(:xpath,"//input[@value='Continue']").click  
  end
end

Now with this quick guide, do you understand the above test scripts better? 😊