selenium Getting started with selenium Setting up python Selenium via terminal (BASH)

Example

The easiest way is to use pip and VirtualEnv. Selenium also requires python 3.*.

Install virtualenv using:

$: pip install virtualenv

Create/enter a directory for your Selenium files:

$: cd my_selenium_project

Create a new VirtualEnv in the directory for your Selenium files:

$: virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3.0 venv

Activate the VirtualEnv:

$: source venv/bin/active

You should see now see (venv) at the beginning of each bash line. Install Selenium using pip:

$: pip install selenium

Selenium comes with the FireFox driver by default.
If you want to run Selenium in google chrome, also do this:

$: pip install chromedriver

You now have a version-controlled VirtualEnv. To make sure everything is set up correctly:

Start python:

$: python

Prints out:

Python 2.7.10 (default, Jul 14 2015, 19:46:27) 
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 6.0 (clang-600.0.39)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

Create a new webdriver (in this case, a chromedriver), and go to www.google.com:

>>> from selenium import webdriver
>>> driver = webdriver.Chrome()
>>> driver.get("https://www.google.com")

Close the driver and python interpreter:

>>> driver.quit()
>>> quit()

Deactivate the VirtualEnv:

$: deactivate

If the line driver = webdriver.Chrome() is throwing errors:

• Make sure you also have the chrome browser installed. If you don't, the Selenium chromedriver can not access the Chrome binary.
• webdriver.Chrome() can also take a parameter for your chromedriver location. If you installed it using pip, try (on mac) driver = webdriver.Chrome("./venv/selenium/webdriver/chromedriver").