AutoTestServiceGroup Blog

TestComplete: using undeclared variables in JScript

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:17:35 +0300

JScript language allows using undeclared variables. Undoubtedly, this is bad, because we will get an error message “Microsoft JScript runtime error. VAR_NAME is undefined”, if we try to get the value of this variable first. Here, VAR_NAME is the name of the undeclared variable.

However, we still can use undeclared variables in the FOR statement. In this case variable will be created and initialized automatically. There will only one problem left: this variable won’t be destroyed after the FOR statement is finished.

Ruby: Cucumber + Rake + some useful stuff

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:19:02 +0200

Cucumber is just another Ruby-based test engine which gives the ability to write human language automated tests. But this is only one particular aspect. But there\'s another aspect. Cucumber is just another one auxilary utility as many others. As many others Ruby-based solutions the Cucumber can be integrated into some infrastructure. In particular there\'s ability to define some specific tasks to be done. In addition to this sometimes it\'s necessary to check if overall solution is built without any errors, get the list of the tests marked with some specific tag or list the steps which do not have step definitions implemented or so. All this stuff is quite useful for tests development.

Cucumber test engine (Ruby)

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:13:59 +0300

Very often test automation solution becomes so complex that test development require quite strong programming skills. At the same time most of the solutions has a trend to simplify test automation. This can be achieved by various wizards, approaches introduction and devekopment of engines implementing these approaches. In particular,there\'s quite popular approach named keyword-driven testing where tests are actually tthe sequence of keywords structured in tabular form. But there\'s more quirky approach when test instructions are written using "natural" language with corresponding programming implementation. For instance, there\'s engine named Cucumber for Ruby.

Selenium-RC: using CSS

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:09:14 +0300

Of course XPath locator is one of the most quirky and one of the most precise locator. But this universality is accompanied by the main disadvantage of such locator types. It is slowness. This disadvantage is clearly seen while running the tests under IE while Firefox works with xpath pretty well. This problem is related to internal browser features in particular to the libraries being used for elements location definition. But this is another story. The main thing is that tests which intensively use XPath work extremely slow under IE and this feature is the cause of huge variety of problems related to execution speed as well as quality of the tests itself especially during operations with dynamic content. For this reason CSS locators can be good alternative of XPath. What can we do with CSS locators?

SilkTest: working with own-drawn buttons

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:29:49 +0200

PushButton is one of the simplest controls, but there could be problems even with it. In this blog post we will show several ways of how to perform a non-standard Click() action when standard Click can not be used.

TestComplete ( JScript ): Making windows definitions using wrapper classes

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:14:23 +0200

GUI level automated testing has a lot of surprizes related to interaction with window objects. The main problem is that each automation tool has its own set of the most effective solutions to the problem of window definitions maintainability. But these are the most effective solutions for each particular case ( not in general ). Nevertheless, there are some mechanisms which are common to a wide range of tools. Or at least there are analogs. For example there is such approach as windows definitions mapping which provides the ability to set some alias into correspondence to actual window definition. Such solution implementation in TestComplete has one key disadvantage: in case of windows hierarchy modifications for some particular object there is necessity to re-map all child objects. The alternative to mapping was introduced in TestComplete version 6. There was an Alias functionality providing the ability to construct mapped objects hierarchy. But this solution has another disadvantage: slow performance. So, we need some mechanisms allowing to minimize time costs for window definitions modification in case of UI changes. Let's examine this problem on some particular case.

SilkTest: secret 2 - closing inaccessible windows

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:42:45 +0200

The simplest and most obvious way to close a window by SilkTest is using Close() method. However, sometimes this method doesn't work. For example, try to open Notepad, write some text there and then execute the following code

[ ] Notepad.SetActive ()
[ ] Notepad.Close ()

Notepad will show a message box about changes made and will wait for user's actions, and SilkTest will post an error message to the log

*** Error: Window cannot be closed

Of course, such situations should be foreseen and processed in scripts, but what if we need to close a window anyway? In this case we can use Kill() method which simply kills a window. For some reason this method is not described in SilkTest help, but it can be found in the winclass.inc file.

[ ] Notepad.SetActive ()
[ ] Notepad.Kill ()

Happy New 2009 Year

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:29:17 +0200

A new 2009 year knoks the door and the team of Automated Testing Service Group wishes everyone Happy New Year! Let next year bring more possibilities and achievements! Let the success follow you everytime.

TestComplete: when method Drag doesn't work

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 11:14:40 +0200

Sometimes code recorded by TestComplete does not replay as it is expected. One of the problem methods is Drag() method, which allows to move objects to other positions. In this case we can use methods MouseDown() and MouseUp() of Sys.Desktop object to create own dragging function.

function DragDrop(obj, deltaX, deltaY)
{
var iX = obj.ScreenLeft + obj.Width/2;
var iY = obj.ScreenTop + obj.Height/2;
Log.Picture(obj.Picture(), "Object to be moved");
obj = Sys.Desktop.ObjectFromPoint(iX + deltaX, iY + deltaY);
Sys.Desktop.MouseDown(VK_LBUTTON, iX, iY);
obj.HoverMouse(obj.Width/2, obj.Height/2);
Sys.Desktop.MouseUp(VK_LBUTTON, iX + deltaX, iY + deltaY);
}
This function presses left mouse button in the center of the object to be moved, then moves mouse cursor to the new destination and releases pressed button. Here is an example demonstrating moving of icons in the QuickLaunch toolbar.

function Test3()
{
var w1 = Sys.Process("Explorer").Window("Shell_TrayWnd").Window("ToolbarWindow32", "Quick Launch");
DragDrop(w1, -30, -20);
}

How to start learning automation tools

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:36:28 +0300

One of the most frequently asked questions about software testing automation is "where should I start learnig an automation tool?". In this blog post we will try to give an answer to this question without using a concrete tool.

Synchronization in autotests (part 1)

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:32:34 +0300

One of the most serious problem of automated tests ( especially GUI level tests ) is synchronization between test execution and application under test work. In other words, all actions being performed by the automated test have to be executed exactly at the moment when application under test is on the correct state allowing to perform required actions. Otherwise we are at risk to come across the situation when test tries to click on some object, enter some text while the form to perform these operations on is simply not available. As the result, our test goes by its fixed steps but the results and system behavior is unpredictable. And if at the same time there are no recovery scenarios the whole test set execution may be failed at once.

Steps duplication. Get rid of Copy/Paste

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:30:41 +0300

Every so often during tests automation we may encounter steps description like "Repeat steps 1-12" or even more interesting like instructions to repeat all steps using some specific settings. It means that we have to duplicate some code during automated tests development. But excessive code duplication may cause a number of maintainance problems. Any changes have to be made in all repetitive code occurences. And this makes additional time loss. It can be avoided in the following ways:

Automated tests maintainability

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:47:40 +0300

From time to time while reading different publications we may find the opinion that any "heavy-weight big vendor" automated testing tool ( actual tool names are usually omitted ) is associated with such thing as unmaintainable tests. But at the same moment any hand-made solution or even simple library is positioned as something flexible and easy adaptable. Of course, I also prefer taking something little and simple and using it effectively rather than taking something heavy-weight and thinking hard about how to bind it to my processes.

Automated tests: completion criteria

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:04:06 +0300

During development of automated tests as well as any other program components we have to make our code satisfy the following characteristics:

Readability
Extensibility
Transportability
Optimality
Correspondence to requirements
Maintenability
Others ( some project-specific features )

Automated Testing and Test Design

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:50:01 +0300

Test automation success highly depends on the way the tests are designed. Design defines how fast automated tests can be developed, how these tests are suitable to read and understand the concept, how they can localize the problem and how they can reveal problems at all. All these points are highly depend on tests structure. It means that test design takes essential part in test automation. It is test scenario or test workflow description which is basis for automated test implementation. That's why direct impact on test design stage may highly improve test automation process. Well, in order to improve test automation any test scenario requires the following:

TestComplete: improving JScript typeof operator

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:25:40 +0300

JScript operator is used for getting type of the variable. There are six possible values that typeof returns: "number," "string," "boolean," "object," "function," and "undefined".

In this post we will improve typeof operator so that it can also return "date" and "array" values for corresponding data types.

SilkTest secrets. Part 1

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:42:07 +0300

There are undocumented features in any computer program. Some of them are added specially (e.g. Easter Eggs), other can be programmers' mistakes, and some of them are just unimplemented features.
In this article we will describe one of the SilkTest's undocumented features, the 2nd argument for LogError function.

TestComplete: delaying script execution

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:50:34 +0300

In this post you will find an example of the function, which delays script execution and displays the time left for execution in the TestComplete Indicator.

Happy New Year!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:30:00 +0200

Automated Testing Service Group wishes you a Happy New Year!

May all your dreams come true in 2008!

SilkTest: Working with services

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:57:24 +0200

There is an excellent blog post about how to work with Windows Services in SilkTest. You can find it here.

However, later author says, that in order to work with services which display names consist of two and more words (e.g. “Windows Time”), you should use their names instead of Display Names.

Fortunately, this is not the only one method. Using Name instead of Display Name isn’t that good, because names are short and sometimes it is hard to understand which service is used.

In order to work with two and more named services, you can put its name in quotes.

LIST OF STRING lsOut

SYS_Execute ("net start ""Windows Time""", lsOut)

ListPrint(lsOut)