Faster FileField#set

This is slightly edited conversation Is there a way to make file_field.set faster? from wtr-general mailing list.

Me:

Is there a way to make file_field.set faster?

I have noticed that this is the slowest part of my tests. It takes about 10 seconds to set file field. I have read that it can not be set directly because that would be security issue, but I wonder what I could do to make it faster. I upload extremely small files (a few bytes), but I have to do it frequently, and every time it takes about 10 seconds just to set file field.

Mark Cain:

This works for me and it is much faster because it uses the handle of the object.

def startClicker(button, waitTime=5, user_input=nil)
  hwnd = @@ie.enabled_popup(waitTime)  # get a handle if one exists
  if (hwnd) # yes there is a popup
    w = WinClicker.new
    if (user_input)
      w.setTextValueForFileNameField(hwnd, "#{user_input}")
    end
    sleep 3 # I put this in to see the text being input it is not necessary to work
    w.clickWindowsButton_hwnd(hwnd, "#{button}")  # "OK" or whatever the name on the button is
    w = nil # this is just cleanup
  end
end

Me:

startClicker works double faster than file_field.set.

Then I removed line with sleep 3.

Me:

It is now even faster (for three seconds) after I removed line with sleep 3 (when I noticed that comment says that it can be removed).

file_field.set needed approximately 10.6 seconds to set file field, startClicker 4.4, and when I removed sleep 3, it is down to 1.4. That saved me approximately 9 seconds for each file upload (and I do it a lot).

Paul Rogers also suggested AutoIt, but this works fast enough, so I did not even try it.