I am back from my hollidays and back to this performance problem.
I used a debugger (Eclipse) and the profiler (require 'profile') and found
out that the problem comes from the method assert_exists of the class
Element (in element.rb):
def assert_exists
locate if respond_to?(:locate)
unless ole_object
raise UnknownObjectException.new(
Watir::Exception.message_for_unable_to_locate(@how, @what))
end
The problem is that this method is called again and again by many methods,
also by those called by assert_exists! As a result, for my simple example of
7 nested frames, this method was called 1536 times! The same elements were
located again and again with exactly the same criteria (@how, @what and
@container)! I modified the method assert_exists by adding four class
variables that store the three location criteria and the OLE object found.
Next time when the method assert_exists is called, the new criteria are
compared with the previous ones. If they are the same, no need to 'locate'
again, simply return the object found previously. After my modification, the
method assert_exists is called only 17 times (always with my simple
example), and the real location is done only 8 times (7 frames and one text
field) - other 9 calls return the previously located objects. And everything
takes less than 1 second (compared to 15 seconds before!).
Here is the modified method:
def assert_exists
if respond_to?(:locate)
if (defined?(@@how) && defined?(@@what) && defined?(@@container) &&
defined?(@@o) &&
@@how == @how && @@what == @what && @@container == @container)
# The element has already been located -> take the already located
OLE object
@o = @@o
else
# Locate the element...
locate
# ...and save the information that served to locate it...
@@how = @how
@@what = @what
@@container = @container
# ...and also the located OLE object.
@@o = @o
end
end
unless ole_object
raise UnknownObjectException.new(
Watir::Exception.message_for_unable_to_locate(@how, @what))
end
end
Question:
As I am new to Watir (and Ruby), maybe I have ommited an important
functionnality that may be broken by my modification.
Is my modification safe?
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