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The Clock Object

You can modify the browser system clock using the emulate command. It overrides native global functions related to time allowing them to be controlled synchronously via clock.tick() or the yielded clock object. This includes controlling:

  • setTimeout
  • clearTimeout
  • setInterval
  • clearInterval
  • Date Objects

The clock starts at the unix epoch (timestamp of 0). This means that when you instantiate new Date in your application, it will have a time of January 1st, 1970 if you don't pass any other options to the emulate command.

Example

When calling browser.emulate('clock', { ... }) it will immediately overwrite the global functions for the current page as well as all following pages, e.g.:

const clock = await browser.emulate('clock', { now: new Date(1989, 7, 4) })

console.log(await browser.execute(() => (new Date()).toString()))
// returns "Fri Aug 04 1989 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"

await browser.url('https://webdriverio')
console.log(await browser.execute(() => (new Date()).toString()))
// returns "Fri Aug 04 1989 00:00:00 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"

await clock.restore()

console.log(await browser.execute(() => (new Date()).toString()))
// returns "Thu Aug 01 2024 17:59:59 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"

await browser.url('http://guinea-pig.webdriver.io/pointer.html')
console.log(await browser.execute(() => (new Date()).toString()))
// returns "Thu Aug 01 2024 17:59:59 GMT-0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)"

You can modify the system time by calling setSystemTime or tick.

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