why we assign firefoxdriver instance to webdriver

Question

I am novice to Java or Selenium.

I just need help to understand one basic question.

Why we assign firefoxdriver instance to WebDriver? WebDriver driver=new Firef

Answer 1

package test.a1;

import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver;

public class testDriver {

    public static void main(String[] args) 
    {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        String browser="FireFox";
        if(browser=="Chrome")
        {
            System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver",
            "C:\\Users\\LL\\chromedriver_win32\\chromedriver.exe");

            ChromeDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
            driver.get("https://www.gmail.com");
        }
        else if(browser=="IE")
        {

            System.setProperty("webdriver.ie.driver","Drivers\\IEDriverServer.exe");

            InternetExplorerDriver driver = new InternetExplorerDriver();
            driver.get("https://www.gmail.com");
        }
        else if(browser=="FireFox")
        {

            FirefoxDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
            driver.get("https://www.gmail.com");
        }
    }
}

We can do this ..so kindly let know why ..we are doing this Webdriver driver=new FirefoxDriver();.