getLocationAbsUrl vs getCurrentUrl

Question

In protractor, globally available browser object has two methods:

• getLocationAbsUrl()

Returns the current absolute url f

Answer 1

GitHub source for getCurrentUrl

webdriver.WebDriver.prototype.getCurrentUrl = function() {
  return this.schedule(
      new webdriver.Command(webdriver.CommandName.GET_CURRENT_URL),
      'WebDriver.getCurrentUrl()');
};

Uses the schedule() -> command() wrappers to resolve a promise from WebDriver.getCurrentUrl()

---

GitHub source for Protractor.getLocationAbsUrl

functions.getLocationAbsUrl = function(selector) {
  var el = document.querySelector(selector);
  if (angular.getTestability) {
    return angular.getTestability(el).
        getLocation();
  }
  return angular.element(el).injector().get('$location').absUrl();
};

Simply a wrapper around $location.absUrl() with a wait for the AngularJS library to load

---

Current URL vs Absolute URL

given app URL:

http://www.example.com/home/index.html#/Home

Current URL resolves to more of a URI

/home/index.html#/Home

Absolute URL resolves to

http://www.example.com/home/index.html#/Home

When do you want to use absolute URL: You want to use the Full Domain URL, rather than the local navigation (URI), you want the Absolute URL.

• If your application makes calls for the Current URL, your tests should call getCurrentUrl().

• If your code makes requests for Absolute URL, your tests should call getLocationAbsUrl().

Answer 2

As stated previously the getLocationAbsUrl - returns a full path to the current location. browser.get('http://angular.github.io/protractor/#/api'); expect(browser.getLocationAbsUrl()) .toBe('http://angular.github.io/protractor/#/api');

The getCurrentUrl is utilized in a promise (schedule) to retrieve the URL of the current page. Typically, you would only use the getCurrentUrl when scheduling.

webdriver.WebDriver.prototype.getCurrentUrl = function() { return this.schedule(new webdriver.Command(webdriver.CommandName.GET_CURRENT_URL),'WebDriver.getCurrentUrl()'); }

Answer 3

Basically they should do the same thing, return the URL of the page.

From this bug report:

https://github.com/angular/protractor/issues/132

it seems that IEDriver for Selenium was always returning the first loaded page, not the current one. So the protractor team implemented a JS call to Angular's $location to always return the URL correctly via Javascript, not Webdriver protocol.

Answer 4

Note that getLocationAbsUrl() is now deprecated, and should not be use anymore. You should use getCurrentUrl() instead.

Here is the related Github commit by Protractor.