Selenium 3.5.3-Java-IEDriverServer 3.5.1 : 'platformName' attribute returns "XP" where as W3C Specs mentions either "linux", "mac" or "windows"

[Debanjan-B]

Selenium 3.5.3-Java-IEDriverServer 3.5.1 : platformName attribute returns XP where as W3C Specs mentions either linux, mac or windows

W3C Specs mentions the following:

In chapter 7. Capabilities, section 7.2 Processing Capabilities:

windows

where as IEDriverServer 3.5.1 returns XP

As per #4526 and this comment latest IEDriverServer is w3c compatible. But seems out of sync.

Meta -

OS: Windows 8 Pro, 64 bit
Selenium Version: 3.5.3
Browser: Internet Explorer
Browser Version: 10.0 (64-bit)

Expected Behavior - platformName attribute should return either linux, mac or windows

Actual Behavior - platformName attribute returns XP

Steps to reproduce -

Minimal Code Block :

import java.util.Map;

import org.openqa.selenium.Capabilities;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.RemoteWebDriver;

public class WEBDRIVER_platformName
{
	public static void main(String[] args) 
	{
		String attribute = "platformName";
		System.setProperty("webdriver.ie.driver", "C:\\Utility\\BrowserDrivers\\IEDriverServer.exe");
		WebDriver driver =  new InternetExplorerDriver();
                Capabilities cap = ((RemoteWebDriver) driver).getCapabilities();
                Map<String, ?> map = cap.asMap();
                Object value = map.get(attribute);
                System.out.println("Key : " + attribute + " Value :"+ value);
               driver.quit();
 	}
}

Console Output :
Key : platformName Value :XP

[lmtierney]

That list is not final, it is an example. It even states in the spec:

This list is not exhaustive.

When returning capabilities from New Session, it is valid to return a more specific platformName, allowing users to correctly identify the Operating System the WebDriver implementation is running on.

[Debanjan-B]

Thanks @lmtierney But either way I think there is something wrong in the method calls because, while I execute this scenario on WIN8 system the Java client is picking up XP, which is not correct. Where as Java Client intelligence does differentiates between Platform.WINDOWS, Platform.WIN8, Platform.WIN8_1 and Platform.WIN10

[barancev]

Selenium Grid uses platformName capability to find the best node for a new session.

Concrete drivers (like InternetExplorerDriver or FirefoxDriver) simply ignore this capability. They run a browser on the local machine, no matter what the current platform is.

platformName capability returned by a driver in the response to a new session request is totally unrelated to platformName capability passed to the driver constructor.

But, yes, XP is a wrong answer. It should be WINDOWS.