Understanding Implicit and Explicit Waits in Selenium: Default Polling Times and Implementation

In Selenium, testing automation often involves waiting for elements to be present or interactable on a web page. There are two types of waits available in Selenium: Implicit Waits and Explicit Waits. Understanding the default polling times and how to implement these waits is crucial for efficient and effective testing.

Implicit Wait in Selenium

Implicit Wait in Selenium does not have a specific polling time. Instead, it sets a maximum time that the WebDriver should wait when trying to find an element if the element is not immediately available. The default value for an implicit wait is 0 seconds, which means no implicit wait is applied unless explicitly set by the user.

Example Usage of Implicit Wait

Here’s an example of how to set an implicit wait in Selenium:

from selenium import webdriver# Initialize the WebDriverdriver  ()# Set implicit wait to 10 seconds_wait(10)# Navigate to a web page("")# Find an elementelement  _element_by_id("element_id")

By setting an implicit wait, Selenium will wait up to the specified time for an element to be interactable before throwing a NoSuchElement exception.

Explicit Wait in Selenium

Explicit Wait in Selenium, on the other hand, uses a polling mechanism that checks for the condition at regular intervals. By default, the polling interval is set to 500 milliseconds (0.5 seconds), and this time can be adjusted using the pollingEvery method when setting up the explicit wait.

Example Usage of Explicit Wait

Here’s an example of how to set an explicit wait in Selenium:

from selenium import webdriverfrom  import Byfrom  import WebDriverWaitfrom  import expected_conditions as EC# Initialize the WebDriverdriver  ()wait  WebDriverWait(driver, 10, poll_frequency1)# Wait until the element is availableelement  wait.until(_of_element_located((, "element_id")))# Continue with further actions("")

With explicit waits, you can specify the maximum time to wait and the frequency of the checks (polling time).

Default Polling Times in Selenium

The default polling time in both implicit and explicit waits in Selenium is 500 milliseconds (0.5 seconds). This means that until the wait condition is true and the specified time is not over, the WebDriver will check for the element once every 500 milliseconds.

Customizing the Polling Time

If you need more control over the polling time, you can customize the polling interval for both implicit and explicit waits.

For Implicit Wait

While there is no default time in implicit wait, you can set it like this:

driver  ()_wait(3)  # Set implicit wait to 3 seconds

For Explicit Wait

While the default polling time in explicit wait is 500 milliseconds, you can set it to a different value:

wait  WebDriverWait(driver, 10, poll_frequency1)  # Set polling time to 1 second

Conclusion

Understanding and correctly implementing whether to use implicit or explicit waits, and setting the appropriate default polling times, is essential for ensuring that your Selenium tests run smoothly and efficiently. By carefully choosing the right wait strategy and setting the polling times, you can avoid unnecessary waits that slow down your tests.

For more details on synchronization of the script and the page, follow the video below:

Happy testing!