sendKeys(" ") does not check checkbox

[codingphil]

Platform and application details

Windows 10 Creators Update
Firefox: 54.0 (beta)
Selenium: 3.4 (Java)

Steps to reproduce

Run the following Java Selenium test.

  public void testSendKeysSpaceToCheckbox()  {
    webDriver.navigate().to("https://mdn.mozillademos.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/checkbox$samples/Basic_example");
    
    WebElement checkbox = webDriver.findElementById("checkBox");
    assertEquals("input", checkbox.getTagName());
    assertEquals("checkbox", checkbox.getAttribute("type"));
    
    assertFalse("checkbox is NOT selected before pressing SPACE", checkbox.isSelected());
    
    checkbox.sendKeys(" ");
    
    assertTrue("checkbox is selected after pressing SPACE", checkbox.isSelected());
  }

It will fail with java.lang.AssertionError: checkbox is selected after pressing SPACE

A simple test page with a checkbox with the id "checkBox" is used:
https://mdn.mozillademos.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/checkbox$samples/Basic_example

• A trace level log:
  geckodriver-log_sendKeysSpaceToCheckbox.txt

[andreastt]

It’s not supposed to be possible to select a checkbox using the high-level WebElement.sendKeys API. You need to use the low-level actions API for that.

[codingphil]

This is not very intuitive. Both variants of sendKeys() methods should have the same functionality.
At least for the Java programmer it is not very understandable.

Have you any reference to a standard/spec where it is defined that this should not work?
At least in Chrome this works fine.

[andreastt]

Also sprach Philip Lonsing:

This is not very intuitive. Both variants of sendKeys() methods should have the same functionality.

Whilst they may appear to do the same thing, the high-level Element Send Keys command is a do-as-I-mean shorthand which also runs a number of checks, such as ensuring it is keyboard-interactable, scrolling it into view, focussing it, &c. The low-level variant that is part of the actions API, consists of the two primitives keyUp and keyDown, to achieve the same effect. Effectively you will run [keyDown(<spacebar pua>), keyUp(<spacebar pua>)].

Have you any reference to a standard/spec where it is defined that this should not work?

https://w3c.github.io/webdriver/webdriver-spec.html#element-send-keys

At least in Chrome this works fine.

Chrome does not implement the specification.

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