What is 4Test in Silk Test?

4test in silk test is a fourth generation language or 4GL which comes under the category of the object oriented languages. This fourth generation language has been developed especially for fulfilling the needs of the quality assurance professionals. 

The 4test language possesses some very powerful features that have been grouped in to 3 basic kinds of functionality as described below:

1. A library of object oriented classes: This group of functionality includes object oriented methods as well as classes that can be used to specify interaction of a test case with the GUI objects present in an application.
2. A library of built in functions: This group of functionality includes features that are used for performing the common support tasks.
3. A set of statements, data types and operators: This group of functionality includes the features that can be used for introducing the logic as well as the structure to a data base that has been recorded earlier.

- Before the test scripts are created and run, an object repository containing the information regarding the application under test or AUT is to be used by the silk test classic. 

- This object repository consists of the descriptions of all the GUI objects that are present in the application under test or AUT. 

- The actions that are performed by the silk test on these GUI objects are recognized by the silk test based up on some methods as well as properties associated with the objects on which the actions have been performed. 

- After the identification, the actions performed are recorded and stored in the object repository using the 4test language for scripting. 

- There are several classes that are used by the 4test language and have been mentioned below:

1. Active X classes
2. Visual basic classes
3. General core classes
4. General web application classes
5. Flex class reference
6. Java classes
7. .net classes
8. Rumba class reference
9. SAP class reference
10. Silver light class reference
11. Java AWT class reference
12. Java swing class reference
13. Win 32 classes
14. WPF class reference
15. Xbrowser classes

The 4test language comes with the following in built functions:

1. Agent information functions
2. Argument pass modes functions
3. Application state control functions
4. Array manipulation functions
5. Character and string conversion functions
6. Data type manipulation functions
7. Data base functions
8. Data driven functions
9. Date and time manipulation functions
10. Distributed processing functions
11. Distributed results logging functions
12. Exception handling functions
13. File manipulation functions
14. Java functions
15. List manipulation functions
16. Locale functions
17. Numeric functions
18. Operation system calls
19. Product version information functions
20. Password encryption functions
21. Random value operations
22. Registry operations
23. Results file operations
24. Run time status messages functions
25. Script information functions
26. Semaphores
27. Set manipulation functions
28. String manipulation functions
29. SWT functions
30. Timers time date information
31. Web browser functions
32. Windows information functions
33. Date transformation functions

The 4test language comes with the following categories of keywords:

1. Arg list call keyword
2. Current file keyword
3. Current path keyword
4. Type info keyword
5. Alias keyword in type declarations

Following types of statements are found in 4test language:

1. Access statement
2. Break statement
3. Const statement
4. Continue statement
5. Critical statement
6. Exit statement
7. Do___ except statement
8. For statements
9. If statement
10. Multi tag statement
11. Parent statement
12. Parallel statement
13. Raise statement
14. Rendezvous statement
15. Reraise statement
16. Select statement
17. Setting statement
18. Spawn statement
19. Switch statement
20. Return statement
21. Tag statement
22. Use statement
23. With statement
24. While statement

What is a Silk Test Automation Tool? How Silk Test works?

In this article the focus is up on the silk test automation tool and the way it works. 

What is a SilkTest Automation Tool

- Silk test is test automation tool developed originally by the “segue software’. 

- However, later on, this software firm was acquired by the “Borland” in the year of 2006. 

- Again, this Borland software firm was acquired by a third company by the name of “micro focus international” in the year of 2009. 

- This test automation tool was developed for the testing of the enterprise applications via the functional and regression testing methods. 

There are many different forms of silk test or we can say it provides the software world with many of its clients as described below:

1. Silk test classic: This client of the silk test makes use of the domain specific language known as “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.

The silk test automation comes with two major features which have been discussed below:

1. Silk test agent: This feature of the silk test helps in translation of the script commands in to equivalent graphical user interface or GUI commands or we can even say in to user actions.The translated commands then can be run or executed on either the same machine or on a remote machine as a host.
2. Silk test host: This feature takes hold of all the source script files.

- All the windows and controls of the AUT or application under test are identifiable with the silk test as objects. 

- Also, all the properties as well as attributes of each and every window can be defined by the silk test.

- Thus, we can say that the object oriented implementation is partially supported by the silk test. 

- The movements of the mouse as well as the key strokes can be identified by running the silk test automation tool. 

- This feature is particularly useful for the custom objects. 

The silk test can work for the following three programming methods that involve capturing of the dialogues:

1. Record
2. Play back and
3. Descriptive programming

Many of the extensions are supported by the silk test and few of them are:

1. .net
2. Java swing
3. Java swt
4. DOM
5. IE
6. SAP windows GUI
7. Firefox and so on.

- Bitview. Exe is the silk test bitmap tool that is used by the silk test for capturing as well as comparing the windows and areas.

- There are several file types that find their use in the silk test and have been mentioned below:

1. Test plan (.pln)
2. Test script (.t)
3. Frame file (.inc)
4. Result file (.res)

- According to a survey, the silk test provides the proper and right interface either IDE powered, script based or visual bases as it suits the role. 

- As a result, all the users are empowered to take participation in the testing process which ensures that there is a continuous validation of the critical applications. 

Test Scripting Language : 4Test used in SilkTest

SilkTest is Segue Software’s offering for automated functional testing. It supports the testing of client-server and browser-based applications, as well as standalone programs.
- In SilkTest, users modify automated test scripts using a proprietary, object-based programming language called 4Test.
- 4Test is an object oriented 4GL language and offers sufficient built in functionality to ease our life.
- SilkTest scripts can also directly access databases to execute SQL commands and perform verification of database content.

There are basically four classes to which the methods belong:
- AgentClass
- AynWin
- ClipboardClass
- CursorClass
Important Methods in test scripts are :
- Accept (): closes the dialog box and accepts values specified there.
- ClearText (): removes all text from text field.
- Click (): Clicks a mouse button on the push button.
- Close (): Closes the window.
- Close Windows (): Closes all windows of the application except main.
- Exit (): Terminates the application.
- GetActive (): Returns the active window in the application.
- GetCloseWindows (): Returns the windows that must close to return the application to base state.
- GetFocus (): Returns the control with the input focus.
- Invoke (): Invokes the application.
- SetActive (): Makes the window active.
- Wait (): Waits for the specified cursor and returns the value of elapsed time.
- VerifyActive (): Verifies that the window is active.
- Start (): Invokes the application and waits for the main window to appear.
- Size (): Resizes the window.