Data Driven Testing - Automation Frameworks

Data driven testing is a very important aspect of test automation. In data-driven testing, the scripts read data from an external storage site like a file or database, rather than use values hard-coded in the script. A data-driven test includes the operations like retrieving input data from storage, entering data in an application form, verifying the results and continuing with the next set of input data. It significantly increases test coverage and also helps reduce the need to create more tests with different variables.

The data-driven testing approach can be used with unit, functional and load testing. Data-driven testing separates the test data from the test itself. This makes both the test and the data more flexible and reusable and certainly much more easy to maintain.

Data driven scripts are those application-specific scripts captured or manually coded in the automation tool’s proprietary language and then modified to accommodate variable data. Variables will be used for key application input fields and program selections allowing the script to drive the application with external data supplied by the calling routine or the shell that invoked the test script.

Data-driven testing is built around the need to test how an application deals with a range of inputs. An important use of data driven tests is ensuring that applications are tested for boundary conditions and invalid input. A data-driven test alleviates the pains of testing with large sets of data by separating test input from the test itself.