What is Testing Anywhere software product? What are its uses?

Testing anywhere software product was developed by the Automation Anywhere Inc. based in San Jose. This is another software in the category of test automation tools. This software has proven to be a boon for the software testers and developers who have to test the web sites, applications, GUI front-ends, objects and controls. The product has got many uses from recording to the execution of the test cases. It is used for the following major purposes:

1. Recording of the tests
2. Debugging them
3. Scheduling their execution
4. Executing the tests

The above mentioned operations can be carried out for a number of application types such as:

1. Java
2. Silverlight
3. Mainframe
4. C++
5. .NET and so on.

Testing anywhere product provides option for automating the test case creation. Testing anywhere offers you 5 different methods for creating the test cases namely:

1. Web recording
2. Object recording
3. Image recognition
4. Smart recording and
5. Editor

- The test cases thus created using any of the above methods can be later recorded, edited, saved and can also be enhanced. 

- The editor is used for editing the test cases. 

- People who don’t have programming skills can use the wizard for creating and editing the test cases. 

- Testing anywhere software lets you create files with .exe extension i.e., the executable files which later can be deployed by the software testers on remote machines. 

- The creation of a high level IT and business processes is the responsibility of the workflow manager. 

- Further, workflow manager only takes care of the ability by virtue of which these processes are managed. 

- It supports a number of platforms:

1. Microsoft windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit)
2. Microsoft windows vista (both 32 and 64 bit)
3. Microsoft windows XP (both 32 and 64 bit and along with service pack 2)
4. Microsoft windows server 2008 R2
5. Microsoft windows server 2003

- Testing anywhere supports the following kinds of testing:

1. Integration testing
2. Compatibility testing
3. Performance testing
4. GUI testing
5. System testing
6. Java application testing
7. Automated flex testing
8. Silverlight application testing
9. Mainframe application testing
10. WPF testing
11. Third party .NET supported testing
12. Automated software testing
13. Automated web testing
14. Regression testing
15. Distributed testing
16. Functional testing
17. Black box testing
18. Acceptance testing
19. Unit testing
20. Keyword driven testing
21. Data driven testing
22. Smoke testing

- The product has been named because of the facility that it provides for running the tests on any remote machine present in the network. 

- Further, it reduces the testing cost by a huge margin since it cut down the money being spend up on the software licenses, resources, and training and time of course.

- Testing anywhere provides you a SMART recorder for creating new tests.

Explain Robot Framework?

The Robot Framework was developed as generic test automation framework for two major tasks namely:

1. Acceptance testing and
2. ATDD or acceptance test driven development

- It makes use of the keyword driven testing approach for achieving the above mentioned two tasks. 

- It has got a very simple and unique tabular test data syntax that is quite easy to follow and this is what that makes robot framework so easy to be used. 

- All this makes the robot framework popular among the testers.

- Test libraries that can be implemented through either java or python can be used for extending the capabilities of the frame work. 

- The users have the choice of creating new keywords from the existing ones. 

- This can be done using the same syntax that is available for the creation of the test cases. 

- Robot framework is actually an open source software. 

- The license it possesses is the Apache license 2.0.

- The Nokia Siemens Networks supports the development of this framework and also owns its copyrights. 

Features of Robot Framework

The robot test automation framework is abundant of features. Its features are:

1. Its tabular syntax is easy to use and can be used for the creation of the test cases in a way that is uniform.
2. Robot framework can work up on three approaches namely:

- Keyword driven testing approach

- Behavior driven development approach or BDD

- Data driven testing approach or DDT.

3. It provides the facility for the creation of higher level keywords that are reusable for the already existing keywords.
4. The reports and logs it generates are quite easy to follow and are based up on HTML.
5. This test automation framework does not depend up on any platform or application.
6. The architecture of the frame work is quite modular in nature that helps in supporting the creation of the tests for even the software systems and applications that possess a number of interfaces all different from one another.
7. It comes with a library API that is quite simple and can be further used for the creation of other test libraries that can be customized.
8. The XML based outputs that the framework provides allow for integrating itself in to the build infrastructure that already exists. These are called continuous integration systems.
9. It also provides a command line interface for the same purpose as that of the XML based outputs.
10. It supports selenium tool for the following things:

Ø  Web testing

Ø  Java GUI testing

Ø  telnet

Ø  running processes

Ø  SSH and so on.

11. The framework comes with a remote library interface, thus enabling the implementation of the test libraries in any desired programming language and distributed testing.
12. The tagging feature provides helps in categorizing the tests and selecting them accordingly for the execution.
13. For variables, it comes with a special built – in support for regulating testing in different environments.

- Test cases can be written either in HTML or in plain text.

- Also, any editor can be used for editing the test cases. 

- The robot test automation framework comes with a graphical development tool called the RIDE or robot IDE. 

- The tool has got a number of features specific to the framework such as syntax highlighting, code completion and so on. 

- Selenium library is an extension to the robot test automation frame work and similarly there are a number of others. 

- However, there are some other languages that can be used for implementing the libraries such as perl, PHP, java script and so on. 

- However, these languages can be used only through a remote library interface.

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 Python Testing? What are system requirements for python testing?

Framework for Python Testing

- A special frame work is used for python testing frame work which is commonly known as the “py unit”. 

- This frame work is nothing but a language version of the Junit which was developed earlier by Erich gamma and Kent Beck. 

- Kent previously had developed a small talk testing frame work. 

- The Junit is a version of this frame work only. 

- Each one of them can be considered to be a standard unit testing frame work representing their own respective language. 

- Test automation is much supported by the unit test. 

- Other things supported by the unit test are:

1.   Sharing of set up

2.   Shut down code for tests

3.   Aggregations of tests in to collections

4.   Keep the tests independent of the reporting frame work

- In addition to all these classes that support qualities for a set of test cases are also provided by the unit test module. 

- But to provide all these, it is necessary that the unit test module should support the following concepts:

1. Test case: Being the smallest unit of testing, it is designed to check the specific response to a certain input. New test cases are created from a base class called “test case” which is again provided by the unit test module.

2. Test fixture: The purpose is to be the representation of the preparation that is very much required for performing one or more than one as well as clean up actions. Some examples are:

a)   Creating temporary data bases

b)   Creating proxy data bases

c)   Creating directories

d)   Starting a server process

3.Test suite: It is a collection of either test cases or test suites or in some cases a mixture of both. Serves as an aggregating tool which collects the tests to be executed in one place.

4.Test runner:This component facilitates the orchestration of the execution periods of the tests and accordingly provides results to the user. Either a graphical interface or a textual interface can be used by the test runner.

The following two concepts are supported by the function test case and test case classes:

1.   Test case and

2.   Test fixture

- The frame work for python testing has been designed in such a way that it will work with any standard python but on versions higher than 1.5.2. 

- Pyunit has been tested on various versions of Linux with python 2.0, 2.1 and so on. 

- Also, the python has been known to work on platforms other than this example mac and windows.  

- The unit test module is actually a content of the standard python library of python 2.1 and above. 

- If in case you are working with an old version of python, you need to obtain this module from a separate distribution of the pyunit. 

- To ensure that the unit test module is being used in your code, you need to ensure that the directory which holds the file unittest.py is included in your code. 

- There are two ways to do this as stated below:

1.   Including the ‘$PYTHONPATH’ environment variable

2. Placing the directory in the current search path of python on linux machines.

- Exceptions are part of every test run. 

- So, in python testing whenever exceptions are raised, in order to format the failure details the resulting trace back objects are saved. 

- The failure details are printed at the end of the test run.

- However, memory usage poses a problem whenever test suites are run with very high failure rates.

Is there any problem in using scripts created on v6.0 to 6.5 or higher versions?

In some cases, it may happen that while trying to automate a java swing application using an early version of silk test such as the silk test 5.0.3. You found that the objects and controls in the application window of the application under test or AUT might not be recognizable by the silk test. 

This is just an example of problems of such category and at times you may wonder if the higher versions such as the silk test v 6.0 or silk test v 6.5 are suitable for automating your application or not? Or does the silk test comes with some extensions or add – ons as an alternate for overcoming such situations. 

The version 6.0 of the silk test is known to have some bugs in it, however, the Segue software has known to resolve these known issues. Actually, advancing form a lower version to a higher version of the silk test must not pose a problem. 

Though this is a general statement that we made on the basis of observation of several instances, it is not necessary that it should turn out to be true in all the cases. You may face some problems with the scripts that will work on an earlier but not on higher versions such as 6.0 and above because the object recognition patterns in both of them are not the same and vary from version to version. 

There are certain situations where the two paths of the script might be used for performing the same action but based up on the version. 

The silk test version 6.0 and silk test version 6.5 are somewhat similar and though no problems are experienced in advancing from version 6.0 to version 6.5 of the silk test. 

The various client forms of silk test are available such as those stated below:

1. Silk test classic: This client of the silk test makes use of the domain specific language called “4test” for scripting of the test automation scripts. This language just like the C++ language is an object oriented language. Just like C++ it also makes use of the Object Oriented concepts such as following:

a)   Inheritance

b)   Classes and

c)   objects

2. Silk 4J: This client of the silk test enables one to follow test automation by using java as the scripting language in eclipse.
3. Silk 4 net: This client of the silk test also enables one to follow test automation by using VBScript or sometimes using C# as the scripting language in the visual studio.
4. Silk test work bench: This client of the silk test enables the testers to carry out the automation testing using VB.net as the scripting language as well as on a visual level.

Below stated is the list of the silk test versions that have been released till now:

1. Borland silk test 13- june 2012
2. Micro focus silk test 2011 – November 2011
3. Micro focus silk test 2010 R2 WS 2 – may 2011
4. Micro focus silk test 2010 R2 – December 2010
5. Micro focus silk test 2010 – july 2010
6. Silk test 2009 – august 12, 2009
7. Silk test 2008 SP1 – jusly 2008
8. Silk test 2008 – april 2008
9. Silk test 2006 R2 service pack 2 – September 2007
10. Silk test 2006 R 2 service pack 1 – june 2007
11. Silk test 2006 R2 – January 2007
12. Silk test 2006 – September 2006
13. Silk test 8.0 – may 2006
14. Silk test 7.6 – September 2005
15. Silk test 7.5 – june 2005
16. Silk test 7.1 – October 2004
17. Silk test 6.5 – November 2003
18. Silk test 6.0 – November 2002
19. Silk test 5.0.1 – September 1999
20. QA partner 4.0 – November 1996

What are the different types of Test Automation Frameworks?

Test automation frame work has got its own importance in the field of software testing. It can be defined as a set that consists of concepts, tools and assumptions that can be used to support the automated software testing. The basic advantage of using a test automation frame work is that maintenance costs are reduced by large margins. If any changes to the test case are made then there is a need to update only the test case files. No updates are to be made to the following two scripts:

1. Startup script and
2. Driver script

In some ideal cases there is no need of even updating the scripts in case changes are made to the application software. In order to have all the advantages of using a test automation framework it is important that you select the right one otherwise you will face the problem the other way round. 

There are various frame work techniques that are used namely:

1. Key word driven

2. Data driven

3. Structured

4. Linear

5. Hybrid and so on.

Purpose of Test Automation Framework

1. Defining of format for expressing the expectations
2. Creation of a mechanism for driving the application under a particular test.
3. Execution of the tests
4. Reporting of the results.

A test automation frame work consists of the following four components namely:

1. Test automation interface
2. Interface engine
3. Interface environment
4. Object repository

Types of Test Automation Frameworks

1. Ad-hoc test automation framework: 

- The scripting involved in this is developed in reactionary mode with the purpose of testing a single issue only. 

- The test case steps form part of each action script and exhibit low re-usability and call for high maintenance. 

- This frame work consists of some data inputs that are stored in the data sheet of the test script.

2. Data driven test automation frame work: 

- In this framework the scripts are considered to be an assembly of the function calls. 

- Data for the tests is supplied from the external source such as ODBC database, spreadsheets and so on. 

- Results are captured externally for each script separately.

3. Keyword driven test automation frame work: 

- A sequence of the key word prompted actions are used to be express the test cases. 

- Action scripts which serve the purpose of calling functions are executed by the driver script. 

- For this frame work no special scripting knowledge is required.

4. Model driven test automation framework: 

- This test automation framework makes use of descriptive programming for testing the dynamic applications inclusive of the web applications and sites. 

- The parametric code defines the objects and the work flow capabilities are enhanced by the custom functions.

5. 3^rd party test automation frame work like HP’s quick test professional: 

- This test automation frame work is also key word driven but its control is taken by the HP quality center data base. 

- It can be used in projects where there is a requirement for collaborative work efforts. 

- This framework has high level test requirements and the tests are defined as scripted components.

6. Intelligent query driven test automation frameworks: 

- This framework is object oriented and works on the agile principles. 

- It was constructed as a series of framework layers which compiles data at the run time with the help of data mining techniques which can be combined based up on the cope of the requirements of the test.

What is split action and the purpose of using this in QTP?

Well, here is another article that talks about what is meant by split action and what purpose does it has to serve in test automation using quick test professional. 

In quick test professional, after recording of an action it has to be split in to various parts. This is known as split action. 

In quick test professional two types of split actions have been provided as mentioned below:

1. Splits independent to each other and
2. Nested splits

- After the recording is complete, it is run and designed the option “keyboard view” is selected and the part to be highlighted is clicked. 

- After this the “split action” option is selected from the step menu for splitting the action. 

- Before you decide to split, you should always remember that once you split the action, it cannot be undone. 

- Your original recorded action will be lost and you won’t be able to recover it. - Therefore, to avoid such kind of situations it is important that the recorded action must be saved the very before splitting it. 

- Saving before splitting is always recommended.

- In some cases multiple split actions that are independent of each other can be obtained. 

- There are several advantages of split action:

1. With the actions tests can be divided in to business processes and logical units.
2. With actions quite a modular and efficient scripts can be created.
3. Multiple actions can be contained within a test script.

- The action that is stored in the test scripts that you recorded can be split either in to parent child nested actions or in to sibling actions. 

- Whenever you split an action the beginning of the other part of the action takes place from the step that was selected during the process of splitting the action. 

- You cannot split an action under following situations:

1. If you already have an external action in selection.
2. You have selected the first step of an action.
3. Some read only test is active.
4. Running a test
5. Recording of a test is in progress.

- Some tests make use of a local repository and so while splitting actions contained in such tests following things happen:

1. A copy of local repository is created by the quick test professional.
2. The two action splits are assigned the identical local object repositories. Such local repositories consist of all the objects that were present in the original local object repository.
3. If the objects are added to only one of the split actions, those objects are added to the local object repository of that action only.

- To split an action you need to select the particular step before which according to you lies the starting of the second action. 

- Now, go to the edit menu, the action, and then to split action. 

- Up on clicking on this option you get a split action dialog box. 

- Select the type of actions you want to have i.e., independent or nested. 

- Here, you can also modify the names and description of the two actions in their respective names and description boxes. 

- One important point that you should always take care of is that if you call a reusable action through another test, splitting such an action will cause the test to fail.

Basic purpose of Split Action

- The basic purpose the split action serves is that it makes the application reusable. 

- The reusability is increased since the actions are divided based up on their functionality. 

- Another point is that calling an action is same as asking to execute it and only reusable functions can be called. 

What is QTP? What are the types object Repositories in QTP?

HP has set out a new margin in the field of test automation by introducing the quick test professional. This test automation suite has a dedicated efficiency towards the automation of functional and regression testing scripts for testing software system, applications as well as environments.

There is no doubt that the quick test professional is from the family of HP quality center tool suite and can be very well used for enterprise quality assurance. 

What is Quick Test Professional (QTP)?

- A very user friendly graphical user interface is what that makes the quick test professional quite amiable with the users. 

- It provides extensive support for keyword and interface scripting.

- The language that is used here for manipulating the controls and objects present in the application and setting out the specifications for a test procedure is the VBScript or visual basic scripting edition. 

- The original writer of the quick test professional is mercury interactive itself as it was for the other HP products. 

- The current version of the quick test professional version 11.0 has been made available via the HP software division. 

- This present version of quick test professional has proved to be the most reliable as well as the stable version among the rest of the versions. 

- Till now 12 versions of quick test professional have been released out of which there was a version 7.0 which was never released. 

- Quick test professional can be called as a complete test automation tool than a test automation suite. 

- It mainly operates on the Microsoft windows operating system. 

- This test automation tool comes with a proprietary license. 

- The quick test professional can even test the test the testing environments unlike the previous test automation tools which could only test the software systems and applications. 

- It helps a great deal when it comes to the identification of the objects in a web page or an application user interface and can even perform desired user – interface interactions. 

- The quick test professional has been developed by HP especially for UI based test case automation but it can also be extended to automate some of the non UI based test cases such as those mentioned below:

1. File system operations
2. Web services testing
3. Data base testing and so on.

- It is cent percent correct to say that the quick test professional is the true successor of winrunner. - In some of the cases it may happen that the HP quick test professional may not identify some of the complex as well as other customized user interface objects. 

- These objects have to be defined by the users as virtual objects. 

- However, there is no support provided by HP low level mode recording or analog recording of the virtual objects. 

Types of Object Repository of QTP

Now let us discuss regarding the object repository of the quick test professional. 

- An object repository can be thought of as a store room of quick test professional where it stores all the information regarding the objects. 

- The object repository also enacts as an interface between the AUT and test script in order to facilitate the identification of the objects during the execution process. 

- In QTP objects are classified in to following 4 categories:

1. Test objects
2. Utility objects
3. Run time objects
4. User defined objects or automation objects

- A local object repository is also created by quick test professional automatically for each and every action when the recording is in progress. 

- These local repositories cannot be shared among different tests. 

- However, they can be supplemented by additional objects by the user. 

- Operations like insertion, deletion and renaming can be performed by the user on the objects present in the local repository. 

What are all the different languages that can be called using TSL in between the scripts?

A suite of manual test cases was developed by some of the organizations with the help of text editor which was found to be quite difficult to be used, maintained and executed as efficiently as in the case of other test cases. 

These test cases prove to be quite effective in detecting the defects before the production phase starts but consume more time in their management and execution and thus affect the investment terribly.

This problem becomes graver as the role of the organizations grows. The only solution to this problem is the investment in a sound test automation tool. 

Winrunner is such a test automation tool whose core language is the TSL or “test script language”. 

The three basic needs of the test automation engineer are addressed by the winrunner and TSL both namely:

1. Management and organizational needs
2. Test architecture
3. End user

What are the features of WinRunner?

The winrunner possesses the following features:

1. It enables the users to author, organize and maintain a set of automated test cases.
2. Provides a web enabled and shareable environment.
3. It supports test case design.
4. Provides automation
5. Supports execution of the best practices (that have been defined the test organization).
6. It serves as a tool box for building a testing frame work.

All the facilities are provided by the winrunner, now the responsibility of building a test frame work lies solely with the test automation engineers. 

What is TSL? What languages can be called through TSL?

- Winrunner is driven by the test scripts created in the language TSL.

- Test script language is a programming language which is quite close to the C programming language.

- Most of the features of the test script language resemble the features of the C programming language though it is quite simple than C programming language.

- The test automation engineers who are quite experienced with the languages such as C do not find it much difficult to master the test script language. 

- The organization is responsible for the maintenance and organization of this TSL code base.

- Few of the different languages that can be called using the test script language in between the scripts are:

1. Web scripts
2. GUI
3. >NET
4. Java
5. Javascript
6. HTML and so on.

- With the test script language the integration of other tool sets is also possible and is done via some API. 

- TSL actually comes in to play whenever the user records a test. 

- The default code that is generated in the winrunner window is in test script language only. 

- This script written in test script language is saved as some script file. 

- The TSL language apart from just creating the test scripts also combines functions developed from some specific purpose for the test in some other language that has got TSL like features like control flow statements, variables, arrays and user defined functions.

- Another good thing about test script language is that there is no need to compile it. 

- The scripts can be immediately executed just after they have been recorded. - Four types of functions are provided by the test script language as stated below:

1. Analog functions
2. Context sensitive functions
3. Standard functions and
4. Customization functions.

- Not even just language codes and functions but also the whole application written in a different language can be invoked in between the scripts with test script language.  

- This is actually done via the function “invoke_application” that is defined using test script language only.