directConnect in protractor

what is directConnect in protractor?

• Basically in protractor, a test case will run by connecting to browser through selenium server.
• But protractor provides a feature i.,. directConnect, it will be used to directly connect to the browser driver.
• directConnect will take 2 values:

1. true,
2. false

directConnect:false  ::

• Its default value is false.
• To use directConnect, we have to configure directConnect in the configuration file(conf.js).
• If we do not use directConnect in the configuration file, it will take the value as false (as it's the default value)
• When directConnect value is false, it's mandatory to configure seleniumAddress in the configuration file.
• directConnect=false is used to connect the protractor tests to browser(chrome/firefox drivers) through seleniumServer
• seleniumServer will start at a specified port number. if not specified it will use default port  4444
• In your config file, set seleniumAddress to the address of the running server. This defaults to http://localhost:4444/wd/hub.

directConnect:true  ::

• directConnect=true is used to connect directly, the protractor tests to browser(chrome/firefox driver) bypassing (or) by skipping (or) without using the seleniumServer.
• If it is true, it will ignore seleniumAddress and seleniumServerJar settings.
• The main advantage using value directConnect=true,is your test script may start up and run faster.
• If you try to use browsers other than chrome, firefox, it will throw an error.

Let's see how to configure directConnect in your configuration file:

using directConnect=false:

exports.config = {
    framework: 'jasmine',
    seleniumAddress: 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub', //directConnect:false
    specs: ['testSpec.js']
}

using directConnect=true:

exports.config = {
    framework: 'jasmine',
    directConnect:true,
    specs: ['testSpec.js']
}
Execute test case with different combinations for directConnect values(true/false)

Learn how to run a testcase here

protractor directConnect

directConnect protractor

• 
  Observe above, here if we provide both seleniumAddress & directConnect=true, it will prefer directConnect=true only.

directConnect=false in protractor

directConnect seleniumAddress protractor

• we got error in above execution, because server is not started before execution of protractor test.
• Start server (see below screenhsot) then start run protractor test.

directConnect server start protractor

directConnect seleniumAddress protractor

Please comment below to feedback or ask questions.