Script assure technology is another
key technology used by the IBM’s rational functional tester which is an
automated tool developed for functional testing by the IBM’s rational software
division.
- Rational functional tester is usually employed by quality assurance
people in order to carry out the regression testing.
- The test scripts are
created with the help of a sophisticated test recorder which includes capturing
the actions of the users against the AUT or application under test.
- From these
captured actions, a test script is created by the recording mechanism which is
based on .net or java applications.
- When the version 8.1 of the rational
functional tester was released, the scripts started to be represented as a
series of the screen shots from a story board that is of a visual nature.
- The
created script is further enhanced using the syntax and standard
commands of the language.
- These scripts are then run for the validation of the
software system’s or application’s functionality.
- To say the test scripts are
executed in the batch mode so that the test scripts can be grouped together and
executed unattended.
- During the phase of recording, the verification points are
introduced by the user for capturing the system with its expected state.
- Any
information regarding the bugs is stored in the logs of the rational functional
tester.
- While the play back process is in progress, an object map is used by
the rational functional tester for finding and acting against the interface of
the application.
- However, it is possible that during the development phase the
objects might be changed between the time that was taken for the recording of
the script and for executing the script.
- The script assure technology allows
the rational functional tester to ignore the discrepancies between the
definitions of the objects that were captured during the recording as well as
the playback in order to ensure that there is an interrupted execution of the
test scripts.
- This is a factor called the script assure sensitivity which determines the
size of the object map discrepancy that is acceptable and this factor can be
set by the user.
- It has been found that developing automated scripts for
carrying out the regression testing of the dynamic content of the web pages
such as GUI applications is difficult for the testers who are used to IBM
rational functional tester.
- Testers tend to develop scripts that are quite
re-silient and can be used for testing the values of the dynamic object
properties which are not known to have sufficient unique properties even though
having sufficient properties lead to problems in the recognition and thus
leading to several failures and errors.
If you understand properly that how the
IBM rational functional tester works, its advantages, and how the objects can
be recognized during the run time, you can very well develop the scripts that
can be used to cope up with the changes and provide results of the regression
testing that are informative enough.
Many of the testers who are freshly
introduced to the rational functional tester find the difficulties in the
creation of the resilient scripts while simultaneously automating the web based
applications.
With the help of the script assure technology, the scripts can be subjected to play back in the rational
functional tester by using the script assure feature which will also help in
controlling the object matching sensitivity.
Object matching sensitivity is a
function that relies on a number of factors for the recognition of the
objects present in that application. It is important that the properties that
were recorded in the object map must match with the object properties so that
the properties could be recognized by the rational functional tester.
It is by
default that the rational functional tester might recognize an object even if
some properties do not match. If a match is not found between the two
properties, the object in the application cannot be recognized by the rational
functional tester.
