Upcoming Breaking Change: ExpectedCondition Drops Guava's Function Interface
ExpectedCondition will stop implementing Guava’s Function interface. Here’s who is affected and how to migrate ahead of time.Categories:
Starting with Selenium 4.51, org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedCondition will stop
implementing Guava’s com.google.common.base.Function interface. This is a breaking change for
a small set of users, and we want to give everyone time to prepare before it ships.
We are not shipping this immediately. This post is the heads-up; the change is targeted for the Selenium 4.51 release, giving everyone time to check their code beforehand.
Why This Matters
Selenium’s Java client bindings have depended on Guava for years, largely for a handful of
small utilities. That dependency adds weight to every project that pulls in Selenium and can
collide with a project’s own Guava version. We’ve been working to remove Guava from the client
bindings piece by piece — see #12737 —
and ExpectedCondition is one of the last remaining spots where it leaks into a public API.
What’s Changing
Today, ExpectedCondition<T> extends both interfaces:
public interface ExpectedCondition<T extends @Nullable Object>
extends com.google.common.base.Function<WebDriver, T>,
java.util.function.Function<WebDriver, T> {}
After the change, it will extend only the JDK interface:
public interface ExpectedCondition<T extends @Nullable Object>
extends java.util.function.Function<WebDriver, T> {}
Who Is Affected
If you call ExpectedConditions factory methods and pass the result straight to
WebDriverWait.until(...), or if you implement ExpectedCondition with a lambda, you are not
affected — nothing about that usage changes.
You are affected if your code explicitly types a variable, field, or method parameter as
Guava’s Function, for example:
com.google.common.base.Function<WebDriver, WebElement> condition =
ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("submit"));
That assignment relies on ExpectedCondition implementing Guava’s Function, which will no
longer compile once this change ships.
How to Check Now
Search your codebase for com.google.common.base.Function anywhere it’s used together with
Selenium’s ExpectedCondition/ExpectedConditions:
grep -rn "com.google.common.base.Function" --include="*.java" .
How to Migrate
Replace the Guava type with the JDK equivalent — the abstract method signature (apply) is
identical, so it’s a drop-in substitution:
// Before
com.google.common.base.Function<WebDriver, WebElement> condition = ...;
// After
java.util.function.Function<WebDriver, WebElement> condition = ...;
In most cases, you can also drop the explicit type entirely and let it be inferred, or reference
ExpectedCondition<WebElement> directly.
Related Issues
If you run into anything unexpected while checking your code against this, please comment on #13739 before it merges.
