What are two methods provided by TestPartner for functional test development?

TestPartner is quite a successful GUI software testing tool. Micro focus developed this product with the intention of providing means for functional testing and GUI testing to the software developers and testers who have hard deadlines to work up on. This testing tool helps these software developers and testers to achieve more of testing in less time. 

Two primary methods  are provided by the TestPartner for functional test development:

1. Code oriented development

2. Visual storyboard – based development environment

About Code Oriented Development

- Code oriented development uses the Microsft VBA (visual basic for applications). 

- The major benefit of including this in the development environment is that using it, users can access the rich IDE (integrated development environment). 

- Access to IDE is important since it contains all the core visual basic application libraries plus the capabilities that are inheritable in VBA such as error handling, ability to reference public libraries, debugging and so on.

- A library of VBA – based functionality is provided by the Compuware TestPartner and has been specifically built to be used in the functional test automation.

About Visual Storyboard

- Visual storyboard – based development environment interface is also known as the “visual navigator”.

- It is used extensively for developing the functional test automation. 

- The following things are provided to the user through this capability:

Ø  A screen preview i.e., the screen shot of window of application under test.

Ø A list of test automation steps. These are the steps are the steps that were performed while testing against the screen.

Ø  A story board providing a series of test steps that have been performed against a number of screen previews.

- There is another advantage of this approach which is that the users can access the test automation functionality.

- In addition to this they get the ability to add variabalization, different test logics and so on. 

Advantages and Benefits of TestPartner

- Version 6.3.0 is the latest in the series of Testpartner. 

- Testpartner lets you accelerate the testing process at the same time delivering high quality software products on time. 

- The functional test automation through Testpartner is quite easy and cost effective. 

- Testpartner proves to be a powerful tool for functional test automation. 

- The tool is quite easy to understand and use. 

- Users get intuitive insights through the test analysis and visual test creation. 

- Further, there is no requirement of code which it makes usable even for the non – technical business users. 

- Accelerated testing means that the testers and developers can keep pace with the development and quality is no longer seen as a bottleneck. 

- With the visual and storyboard oriented approach of the Testpartner, such business processes can be captured that can empower the experts for creating the sophisticated test cases without being able to write the script code. 

- The analyzation of the test results is simplified by the Testpartner through its visual storyboard. 

- With this story board, it becomes easy to check where the test actually failed and where the modification is required. 

- Testpartner is well equipped with modular structures and powerful extensions. 

- With these, the technical users can access all the debugging and scripting capabilities of VBA for creating advanced test cases that are repeatable.

- Integration of the test cases that have been written in VBA or visually is possible in Testpartner.

- Tests created by the Testpartner are quick in adapting to the changes made to the application. 

- The test results can be used in incorporating the maintenance changes, thus accelerating the maintenance process. 

- The built – in verification capability of the Testpartner lets you add steps for testing the results.

Explain TestPartner - a GUI Software Testing Tool?

- TestPartner was developed by Micro Focus as a software testing tool especially for testing the graphical user interface (GUI) of the software systems and applications. 

- This testing tool was developed with the intention of empowering the software developers to functionally automate the GUIs of the AUTs. 

- The primary goal was to make the team capable of performing more application testing in a given time period as compared to the manual testing that could be performed in same amount of time. 

- TestPartner offers two basic methods for functional testing:

1. Code oriented development and
2. Visual story board based development

- Recently, the TestPartner version 6.3.0 has been released. 

- It is great product for accelerating the testing process and delivering high quality applications well before the deadline.

- IT managers who have the responsibility of ensuring the quality of the application need to deal with several business challenges that are critical such as:

Ø  Verification of the functionality of the functions i.e., whether or not they are working as expected and meet the business requirements.

Ø  Testing of the multiple heterogeneous technologies simultaneously.

Ø  Keeping up with the fast paced release schedules that are ever changing.

Ø  Striking a balance between the application quality and the associated risks.

- TestPartner provides such functional testing capabilities that very well accelerate the testing process and enables the timely successful delivery of the software.

- This it is known to do at a low cost but with no compromise in the quality. 

- TestPartner achieves this through its unique tiered testing approach. 

- The main feature of this approach is that following it can make it possible for the testers and developers to achieve more in the given time through effective collaboration.

- This software product is even beneficial for the non – technical users. 

- The visual and the contextual approach of the TestPartner lets the non – technical users to be a part of the testing process. 

- For the expert software developers and testers it provides the access to microsoft’s visual basic for the AUTs. 

- This gives them power to cope with the most complex testing problems. 

- TestPartner maintains a special flexibility and focus on the usability of the application allowing the developers to produce more positive results with minimal requirement of training.

- It helps leverage the experienced as well as the non – technical testers to test the applications more efficiently. 

- It encourages the collaboration throughout the development cycle thus achieving greater project effectiveness. 

- Using TestPartner one can even automate the regression testing process, thus quickening the acceptance of the regular updates such as services packs and patches. 

- The documentation produced by the TestPartner is quite clear and free of any ambiguity. - This further accelerates the resolution and identification of various issues related to the application under testing. 

- It makes easy for you to understand the test results so that you feel confident in releasing the software. 

- These test results can be can be used for maintaining the tests, providing better ROI. 

- One can improve the quality of the application leading to lower overall development cost. 

Quality efforts can be accelerated for a number of platforms such as:

1. Web
2. .net
3. Java
4. SAP
5. Oracle
6. Other windows – based distributed applications.

Explain Ranorex? What are its features? What are its supporting technologies?

Ranorex is a framework developed exclusively for the windows GUI test automation. Ranorex has proved to be quite an effective framework for testing a number of applications such as the following:

1. Web 2.0 applications
2. Win32
3. MFC
4. WPF
5. Flash
6. Flex
7. .NET
8. Java (SWT) and so on.

One fact about this test automation frame work is that it does not have its own scripting language. Programming languages such as vb.net and C# have certain functionality that are used by the software testers as the base. Then they use the Ranorex’s GUI automation functionality for enlarging the base.

Ranorex supports number of technologies few of which we have mentioned below:

1. Web applications including:

Ø  HTML

Ø  HTML5

Ø  Javascript

Ø  Silverlight

Ø  AJAX

Ø  It also supports cross browser testing on IE, chrome, Firefox and safari

2. Windows desktop client applications:

Ø  .net

Ø  Winforms

Ø  WPF

Ø  Win32

Ø  Java

3. SAP
4. Mobile apps including:

Ø  Android and

Ø  iOS

5. Flash and flex including:

Ø  adobe air

Ø  adobe flash

Ø  adobe flex

Features of Ranorex

1. Capture and playback editor: This feature of Ranorex is more commonly called the Ranorex recorder.This feature lets easy maintenance of the recordings through an actions table editor. It is because of this feature that the Ranorex is able to integrate with the object repositories for the automation.
2. GUI object recognition: This feature uses the RanorexXpath for filtering and identifying any type of GUI element.
3. Test automation library:It includes exclusively .net applications.
4. GUI mapping: This is more commonly known as the Ranorex repository and helps in the management of all kinds of GUI elements present in the application.
5. Test development environment: More commonly called as Ranorex studio and is used for code completion and debugging.

- This framework has won a number of awards for being the best functional automated test tool. 

- With Ranorex, one can test a large number and types of technologies such as that of the desktop, mobile and web. 

- Ranorex makes it extremely easy to create robust and powerful test automation frameworks. 

- Ranorex removes all the barriers in the path of learning process and also accelerates the process to realize a good return of investment or ROI. 

- A number of benefits come along with ranorex:

1. Object based capture and playback editor
2. ranorexXpath
3. Best object recognition
4. Professional library for .net and C#.

- Ranorex has been carried over to a more advanced level of the GUI test automation. 

- Ranorex Xpath is a very powerful technology that has made the test automation even much easier. 

- Ranorex is a testing tool which recognizes almost every UI technology. 

- Not only this, it proves suitable for all the development environments that already exist. 

- Ranorex does a great attempt in bringing together the software testers and developers. 

- The Ranorex automation framework has been developed with an open architecture. 

- At the core functionality of the Ranorex automation frame work lies an API that revolves around a .net framework. 

- The Ranorex is based on standards and helps in generation of better .net and C# user code. 

- Usually the Ranorex studio project works with a lot of files. 

- Before one starts with developing test cases, one should have all the knowledge regarding the layout and views of the tool.  

- The Ranorex studio may consist of the following types of items:

1. Test suite
2. Model group
3. Repository
4. Code files
5. Recording

What are main features of TestComplete?

Many of the software applications are being written as web–based applications that can be run in a browser. The measure of effectiveness with which these applications are tested varies from organization to organization. 

- Test complete automated testing tool offers the answer to this demand. 

- For tests such as regression tests, responsiveness can be generated only through automated testing tools as such. 

- Automated testing is the way to provide many benefits including repeat-ability and speed of the test execution. 

- Test automation is known to induce long term efficiency in a software system or application.

- Developers also get a rapid feedback and can carry out unlimited iterations of the tests.

- Reporting gets customized and finding defects that were missed during the manual testing becomes easy.

-  However, automation always does not prove to be advantageous.

Features of TestComplete

Test complete  testing tool comes with certain features which we shall state now:

1. Keyword testing: This tool comes with a keyword–driven test editor that is built– in and consists of many keyword operations corresponding to the appropriate automated testing actions.
2. Test record and play back: This tool records the key actions which are required to play back the test. All the actions other than the required ones are then discarded.
3. Full featured script editor: This is another built – in editor using which the test scripts can be written manually. This editor comes with some special plug – ins that provide further assistance.
4. Script debugging features: This feature lets you stop before every statement that can be executed so that you can keep a track of what is going on and make changes accordingly.
5. Access to properties and methods of the objects: The names of all the visible elements can be read by this tool including internal elements of the following applications:

a)   Delphi

b)   C++builder

c)   .net

d)   WPF

e)   Java

f)    Visual basic etc.

Also this tool enables the access to values through test scripts so that they can be verified and used in the tests.

6. Unicode support: Tool has a Unicode character set support which enables the user to test the applications that are non – ASCII and use characters such as Hebrew, greek, Arabic, katakana and so on.
7. Issue–tracking support: This tool comes with issue tracking templates which can be deployed for the creation as well as modification of the items that reside in issue – tracking systems. The tool currently provides support for the following:

a)   Microsoft visual studio 2010,2008 and 2005 team system

b)   Bugzilla

c)   Automated QA AQdev team

8. Open architecture (COM based): An open API, COM interface forms the basis for the test complete’s engine. This makes this tool independent of the source – language and enables it to read the debugger info. It can use this info during run time via debug info agent of test complete.
9. Test visualizer: This feature of test complete lets you take screen shots of the test recording as well as play back thus allowing you to make comparisons among the actual as well as the expected screens during the run time.
10. Support for plug–ins: This feature allows the third party vendors to connect with test complete via their software systems and applications. 

What is IBM Rational Purify?

Rational Purify is another dynamic tool from IBM which is meant for carrying out the analysis of the software systems and applications and to provide help to the software developers in producing a code that is more reliable. 

The IBM rational purify comes with unique capabilities:

1. Memory leak detection: This capability is related to the identification of the memory blocks to which there are no valid pointers.
2. Memory debugging: This capability is related to pin – pointing memory errors which are quite hard to be discovered such as the following:

a)   Points in code where the memory is freed improperly,

b)   Buffer over flow

c)   Access to uninitialized memory and so on.

3. Performance profiling: This capability is involved with highlighting the bottle necks of the program performance and improving the application understanding via some graphical representations of the calls to the functions.
4. Code coverage: This capability involves the identification of the code with the line – level precision that is untested.

- Platforms such as the AIX, solaris, windows, Linux and so on support the IBM rational purify. 

- The code that is developed with the help of the IBM rational purify is not only reliable but also faster. 

- This analysis tool is very well supported by the windows application development environment. 

- It has been observed that the windows applications which have been developed using the rational purify have stood to be quite reliable throughout. - There is no need to provide rational purify with a direct access to the source code.

- This makes it capable to be used with the libraries belonging to the third–parties. 

- Languages such as the .NET, visual C++ etc are supported by the rational purify. 

- The IBM rational purify is known to integrate well with the Microsoft visual studio. 

- Almost all the software systems belonging to the windows family are supported by the IBM rational purify. 

- The corruption in the memory is identified and the debugging time is reduced significantly. 

- The reliability pertaining to the execution of the software is also reduced. 

- Also, the software systems and applications now make a better utilization of the memory. 

- The IBM rational purify comes with the binary instrumentation technology in which the code is instrumented at the level of the object or the byte level. 

- Here, re–linking or the re–compilation of the software system or application is not required for the analyzation of the code. 

- Further, the third–part libraries are also analyzed. 

- With the help of the IDE integration feature, the rational purify can integrate very well with the Microsoft visual studio thus cutting down on the need of switching between different tools having different types of user interfaces. 

- It therefore develops a more productive and cohesive development environment and experience. 

- It helps in the testing as well as the analyzation of the code as it is produced by the programmer. 

- A comprehensive support is provided to most of the programming languages. - The ‘selective instrumentation’ feature of the rational purify enables a user to limit the analyzation of the software to a subset consisting of the modules which together comprise the whole application. 

- This helps greatly in the reduction of the run-time and instrumentation overhead.  

- The reporting to the modules concerned also gets limited. 

- The rational purify can be run from the command line also since it comes with a command line interface. 

- Automated testing frame works are among the rest that are supported by the software system or application. 

- In a way the software developers are empowered in delivering the product with the quality that is expected by the users.

How to add and match defects in Test Director?

Location of the defects and their effective repair forms an inseparable part of the application development and indeed of the test director testing process. Defects can be submitted by almost everyone involved with the development process such as the developers, end users and of course testers. The test director eases all the testing processes and thus defects can be submitted through it and can be tracked until they are appropriately repaired. 

In this article we shall discuss the following two things:

1. Adding defects in the test director and
2. Matching defects in test director

Steps in adding defects in Test Director

Whenever a defect is submitted to the test director it is processed through the following  four stages:

1. New
2. Open
3. Fixed
4. Closed

Addition of the defects to the test director can be carried out at almost any stage of the test process. Below we state the steps that you need to follow in order to add the defects in test director:

1. Open the test director project with which you are concerned and log on to it.
2. Next step involves displaying the defects module by clicking on the defects tab. The defect data will be displayed by the defects grid in a grid where each row is a representation of an individual defect record.
3. Clicking on the add defect button will open up the ‘add defect’ dialog box. The fields displayed in red color are mandatory to be filled up.
4. Fourth step involves describing the defect by providing the following details:

a) Summary: i.e., what problem the defect actually caused.

b) Category

c)  Severity

d) Subject

e) Detected in version

f) Description:

It includes the part of the code where the defect was discovered and 

what problem was actually encountered.

5. Now you need to attach the URL address for the page where the defect was found by clicking on the Attach URL button. Clicking on that button will open up a attach URL dialog box. There type the address of the page and click OK. This URL will be displayed above the description box by the test director.
6. Next run a spell check for the text in the description box. If any errors are found follow the replacement suggestions.
7. Click on the submit button to submit the defect to the test director project.
8. Finally, close the add defect dialog box by clicking on the close button. The defect will be added to the defect grid.

How to match defects in Test Director

- The purpose of matching the defects is to find similar defects so that the duplicate ones can be eliminated from the project. 

-  Every time a new defect is added the list of keywords is stored by the test director from the description and summary fields. 

-  The stored keywords are then used for matching the defects. 

- Articles, coordinate conjunctions, wildcards and Boolean operators are ignored by the test director while matching the two tests. 

- Below mentioned steps are for matching defects in test director:

1. Like for adding the defects this also requires displaying the defects module. Do this by clicking on the defects tab.
2. From the defects grid select the one you want to match. If in case you cannot find the required test search it using the clear filter/ sort button.
3. Now click on the find similar defects button to find similar defects. The results will be displayed in the similar defects dialog box by the test director.The defects are searched based up on percentage of the similarity detected.
4. Finally, click on the close button to close the similar defects dialog box. 

What is Perl Testing?

Various testing methodologies have become a corner stone for many of the development processes and PERL testing is one such testing methodology. 

"Perl testing is one such testing that is highly involved with the creation of automated test suites".

The creation of automated test suites with regard to the perl projects is assisted by around 400 testing and quality modules which are now available on the CPAN.

Now you must be thinking why only automated test suites in perl? 

The answer is that the with an automated test suite the developers as well as the project managers get a sense of confidence in the ability of the code that it can very well carry out a specification. 

What is Perl Testing?

- Perl development ethos has always viewed software testing as its central and critical part since years. 

- Gradually, a testing protocol by the name of TAP or ‘test anything protocol’ was set up for the perl in the year of 1987. 

- This TAP protocol is now available for so many languages. 

- Many of the test modules on CPAN like 100s make use of this TAP protocol. 

- With the help of this protocol it has been made possible to enable the following aspects:

1. Testing of data base queries
2. Testing of objects
3. Testing of web sites and so on.

- Around 250,000 tests have been developed for the core Perl language plus there are a same number of tests for the libraries that are associated with it. 

- There is one more advantage of the automated test suites which is that the additions are done to the code base as the changes in functional requirements are experienced. 

- But, while making the additions, re-factoring is required so as to avoid duplication. 

- Since, if there is enough code coverage the issues will automatically be highlighted by the test suite and then it becomes fairly easy to spot the changes that occur in the knock on effects of code. 

- The duty of the code coverage is to determine how much of the code has been tested since the execution of the test suite. 

- This metric however can be obtained from the developer and also the branches and sections of the code that are not being tested can also be reported. 

- Testers can combine the testing modules that are most frequently used and thus it serves a good starting point. 

- So, for the cases in which testing specific functionality is required, one only needs to add specific testing modules to the test.

- Perl has always recognized testing as a part of its culture. 

- With the TAP protocol, the communication between a test harness and several unit tests has been made possible. 

- The TAP producers can make communication regarding the test results to the testing harness in a way that is language agnostic. 

- Earlier the parser and producers were available for only this platform but now they are available for a variety of platforms. 

- The responsibility for the following purposes is taken up by the test anything web site:

1. Development of TAP
2. Standardization of TAP
3. Writing of test consumers
4. Writing of test producers
5. Evangelization of the language and so on.

- In many other testing methodologies, writing the tests and verifying them seems like to be a daunting task but it is pretty easy with the perl test facilities. 

- It is not always necessary that a large perl project must have an automated test suite. 

List out the technical details of mock object?

Mock objects are much in talk these days and seem to be marking themselves as one of the effective tools in carrying out unit testing. 

What are Mock Objects?

- Mock objects are simulated objects counterparts of the original or the non mock object that is intended to mimic the behaviour and working of the original non mock object in a way that is controlled and defined. 

- Classes with heavy code bases are such a pain to test and can be tested only by the mock objects. 

- Ever tried implementing unit tests in a project but failed to do so because of the dependency of the module and difficulty in its isolation?

- Within a budget and time constraint it becomes difficult for configuring and setting up all the external dependencies of the modules. 

- Mock objects are a feasible option for overcoming such problems. 

- Problem with most of the mock tools is that they do not come with documentation so it becomes difficult to work them out. 

- These technical details of mock objects are the center point of this article. 

- Since the mock objects simulate the real object, they are said to possess the same interface as that of the real objects that they are imitating. 

- Nowadays many mock object frame works are available using which the programmers and developers can specify which all methods are to be invoked by the mock object and in which order. 

- Also, the parameters that have to be passed to the mock object can be specified along with the values that will be returned by the mock object. 

- We have divided the technical details of the mock objects in to three categories:

1. Mocks, fakes and stubs

2. Setting expectations

3. Writing log strings

Mocks, fakes and stubs: 

- Some consider the mock objects and fakes to be different things saying that the fakes are much simpler than the mock objects. 

- The fakes are simply used to represent just the interface of the object which they are mimicking and responses that they return are pre-arranged. 

- Thus, we can say a set of method stubs is provided by the fake objects. 

- On the other hand, the mock objects are fake objects but they help in determining whether some other object passes or fails the test to which it is subjected. 

- It does so by the verification whether of the interaction if any took place on the object. 

- Everything else apart from these two i.e., fake objects and mock objects is considered to be a stub. 

- Stub is anything unreal is fake and based up on its usage it can be classified as stubs and mocks. 

- Mock objects possess a little more functionality which is that their method implementations contain assertions that are truly theirs. 

- This furthermore implies that the context of each and every call is examined by the true mock object.

- The examination includes the checking of the order of calling of the methods and performing tests on the data that has been passed as arguments to the method calls.

Setting expectations: 

It is ensured by a mock setting that the calls to the system will cause the system to throw some exception like getting hanged or crashing.

Writing log strings: 

Mock methods can be used to make an entry to the public log strings which otherwise could result in invisible performance sapping bugs.