Using Environment Test Data for Dynamic Locators

Using Environment Test Data to parameterize locators

Suppose we need to locate the below element with the username text i.e ‘admin’:

An XPath locator using the text for the element would be //div[ text()=‘admin’ ]

Let’s assume that this username would be different for different Environments as shown below:

Environment Name	Environment Parameters
Dev	{“Username”: “dev-admin”}
Staging	{“Username”: “staging-admin”}
QA	{“Username”: “qa-admin”}

Here, we can make the XPath dynamic by taking the username from the Environment Parameter as demonstrated below: //button[text()=’*|username|’]

With the above dynamic locator, the locator value would be dynamically updated at runtime and the environment variable would be translated to its actual value as shown below:

Selected Environment Name	Dynamic Element locator value at Test Runtime
Dev	//button[text()=’dev-admin’]
Staging	//button[text()=staging-admin’]
QA	//button[text()=’qa-admin’]

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