How can you handle exceptions in QTP?

Exception handling is one of the major features of any test automation and testing software suite. The same is with the HP’s quick test professional which is also a test automation and software testing suite. 

How exceptions are handled in QTP?

- The exception handling thing is managed by the quick test professional by means of some recovery scenarios. 

- The basic goal of exception handling in quick test professional is to have the tests running even if some unexpected failure is encountered. 

- There is some memory space associated with the applications that are tested. 

- This memory space is hooked by the HP quick test professional and this in turn gives rise to some exceptions which may cause the quick test professional to falter, terminate and become unrecoverable. 

- The recovery scenarios used by the quick test professional come in built with the whole software package. 

- But it is not always beneficial to rely on the recovery scenarios rather it is always better if you can handle the exceptions and errors yourself. 

- A recovery scenario manager is also available which has an in – built wizard using which you yourself can define you very own recovery scenarios. 

- This wizard can be accessed by going to the tools menu and then selecting the option “recovery scenario manager”. 

- These recovery scenarios deal in three steps as stated below:

1. Triggered events
2. Recovery steps and
3. Post recovery test run.

Some may think that using the recovery scenarios is the only option for handling the exception in quick test professional but it is not so.  

- Another option is which involves the use of descriptive programming.

- This approach is better than the former option since using it your application can gain more visibility and robustness. 

- Though, the recovery manager can be used for many scenarios but some of the real time scenarios cannot be handled using it. 

- In such cases descriptive programming is the alternative. 

- Third option will be make use of the exception handling capabilities of the visual basic script like the following:

1. Err object
2. On error resume next
3. On error go to 0 statements and so on.

- The last two can be used at the script level. 

- The in–built recovery scenario of the quick test professional supports only 4 exceptions:

1. Object state exceptions
2. Pop up exceptions
3. Application crash exceptions and
4. Test run error exceptions

- A simple example is when you play back the recorded script, the AUT screen is minimized and a run time error is generated as “object not visible”.

- A “test run handler” can be used for this. 

- Four trigger events have been defined during which the recovery manager is supposed to be used:

1. When  a pop up window appears while an application is open for the test run,
2. When the value or the state of a property of an object changes,
3. When a step in the test run becomes unsuccessful or fails terribly, and
4. When the open application itself fails while the test is in progress.

- All of the above mentioned 4 triggers are nothing but exceptions. 

- The quick test professional can be instructed accordingly regarding how to recover from an unexpected event or failure that occurred during the test run in the application development environment. 

- Separate individual files can be created for different scenarios as per the requirements. 

- If you search the web you can find an advance qtp script that can attach as well as enable the recovery scenario file when the test run is in progress.