What is the best practice to simulate an ENTER or RETURN using Selenium WebDriver

Question

I came across this solution to my initial problem, which was to simulate an ENTER or RETURN key press using Selenium WebDriver.

However, in my code, I strictly want to use only one of the two WebElement.sendKeys(Keys.ENTER); vs WebElement.sendKeys(Keys.RETURN);.

What is the best practice when doing the same, since there seems to be divided opinion about using enter or return, since both work MOST of the time? In what scenarios would one or the other not work, and is there one which would ALWAYS work?

Answer 1

As a performancewise I do not get any change on both of these,

But yes I know one difference on them

Keys.Enter is used to enter key on the number pad

while

Keys.Return is used to one next to the letters

Generally I have preferred Keys.Enteras sometimes in some browser Keys.Return is not worked for me

Answer 2

Let us analyze Keys.ENTER and Keys.RETURN in details.

Keys.ENTER and Keys.RETURN both are from org.openqa.selenium.Keys, which extends java.lang.Enum<Keys> and implements java.lang.CharSequence

Enum Keys :

Enum Keys is the representations of pressable keys that aren't text. These are stored in the Unicode PUA (Private Use Area) code points, 0xE000-0xF8FF.

Key Codes :

The special keys codes for them are as follows :

• RETURN = u'\ue006'
• ENTER = u'\ue007'

The implementation of all the Enum Keys are handled the same way.

Hence there is No Functional or Operational difference while working with either sendKeys(Keys.ENTER); or WebElement.sendKeys(Keys.RETURN); through Selenium.

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Enter Key and Return Key :

On computer keyboards, the Enter (or the Return on Mac OSX) in most cases causes a command line, window form, or dialog box to operate its default function. This is typically to finish an "entry" and begin the desired process, and is usually an alternative to pressing an OK button.

The Return is often also referred as the Enter and they usually perform identical functions; however in some particular applications (mainly page layout) Return operates specifically like the Carriage Return key from which it originates. In contrast, the Enter is commonly labelled with its name in plain text on generic PC keyboards.

Wiki References : Enter Key Carriage Return

Answer 3

As yourself, I failed to find a good explanation to this question online so I tested it myself using this Keyboard Events tester.

driver.get("https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/d4e/raw-file/tip/key-event-test.html");
WebElement textArea = driver.findElement(By.id("input"));

textArea.sendKeys(Keys.ENTER);
textArea.sendKeys(Keys.RETURN);

As a result I've got this output (this is Keys.ENTER followed by Keys.RETURN):

So it seems like there is no difference between these two options.