Clarification on SeleniumBase Download Handling: Custom Download Folders and Preventing Filename Conflicts

[webmoskal]

I'm currently using SeleniumBase for my testing, and I've encountered an issue where downloaded files have the same filenames. This could be problematic, especially when running tests in parallel using pytest-xdist, as I won't be able to differentiate between files downloaded by different test cases.

I'm curious about how SeleniumBase handles this scenario. I understand that SeleniumBase creates a downloaded_files folder in the working directory where downloads are stored. However, could you explain how SeleniumBase uses lock files to prevent conflicts when multiple tests are running concurrently?

Additionally, I'd like to know if there's a way to specify a custom download folder for each test case. This would be helpful for organizing downloaded files and ensuring that they are associated with the correct test case, especially when running tests in parallel.

Thank you for your assistance!

[mdmintz]

Already discussed here #1557 (comment)

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SeleniumBase creates the downloaded_files folder in the working directory where pytest is invoked. Any click-initiated downloads will go there. It's also used for any special files needed. It also holds lock files to prevent issues with multi-threading. The folder resets at the start of every new pytest run so that past test runs don't interfere with new ones. The folder is hard-coded there to prevent issues. And since the folder is reset at the start of new pytest runs, you wouldn't want to use any other existing folders for it.

There are lots of built-in test methods that are specially made for that folder, such as:

self.get_downloads_folder()

self.get_browser_downloads_folder()

self.get_path_of_downloaded_file(file)

self.is_downloaded_file_present(file)

self.delete_downloaded_file_if_present(file)
# Duplicates: self.delete_downloaded_file(file)

self.assert_downloaded_file(file)

self.get_downloaded_files(regex=None, browser=False)

self.get_data_from_downloaded_file(file, timeout=None, browser=False)

self.assert_data_in_downloaded_file(data, file, timeout=None, browser=False)

If you need files in a different folder, use Python os, sys, and shutil libraries for copying the files you need into a different folder after they get downloaded to the downloaded_files folder.

There's also a pytest command-line option to archive existing downloads instead of deleting them:

SeleniumBase/README.md

Line 673 in 570910c

--archive-downloads # (Archive old downloads instead of deleting them.)

(A copy of those downloads will go into a folder in the archived_files/ folder at the end of the pytest run.)

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There's also this, where you can customize the location:

download_file(file_url, destination_folder=None)

"""Downloads the file from the url to the destination folder.
If no destination folder is specified, the default one is used.
(The default folder for downloads is "./downloaded_files")"""