Let's start by asking, what is an oracle? An oracle was traditionally seen as a portal that Gods used to talk to people; as with anything, there are various definitions in use. To be clear about what an oracle is in the context of this book, we are going to use the following definition:
"A statement believed to be infallible and authoritative."
Why is an exception an oracle? Like an oracle, an exception is an infallible statement; it will always tell you why something has gone wrong in your code. It may not always be easy to understand, but it does always tell the truth. In this chapter, let's have a look at some exceptions that we often see while writing and running Selenium tests and see what they are trying to tell us.
In this chapter, we will do the following:
- Have a look at some of the more common exceptions that you may see when working with Selenium
- Provide some reasons why you may see these exceptions and give you some pointers to help you use them to fix your code