By Renu Bala

Script Support Functions enables you to insert code into Functional Tester Script to perform variety of tasks. These tasks include:

•    Calling a script from a Functional Test Script
•    Inserting Log Messages into Functional Test Script
•    Using timers with Functional Test Script
•    Setting delays and sleep states for Functional Test Script Playback
•    Inserting comments into Functional Test Script

The Script Support Functions dialog box has following tabs:

1.    Call Script for Calling a script from a Functional Test Script
2.    Log Entry for Inserting Log Messages into Functional Test Script
3.    Timer for Using timers with Functional Test Script
4.    Sleep for Setting delays and sleep states for Functional Test Script Playback
5.    Comment for Inserting comments into Functional Test Script

To use script support commands Click on Insert Script Support Commands button on Recording Monitor Toolbar.

Call Script
While recording or editing a functional test script, you can insert a call to a previously recorded script. This lets you avoid repeatedly recording similar actions on the AUT by taking advantage of scripts that already exist.
CallScript inserts following code in the script at the cursor location:

callScript (“scriptname”)
Where scriptname is the name you selected in the script name field.

Log Entry
You can insert a log message into a functional test script and indicate whether it is a message, a warning or an error. During playback, RFT inserts this information into the log.
LogEntry inserts the following code into the script based on the option you selected (message, warning, error):

logInfo(“Message”)
logWarning(“Message”)
logError(“Message”)
Where Message is the text you entered

Timer
You can insert timers with different names into the same script to measure time it takes to perform a variety of separate tasks. You have to explicitly stop the timer to calculate the time taken by the set of events.
The code generated is:
timerStart(“name”)
timerStop(“name”)
Where name is the variable name you want to use for the timer.

Sleep
You can insert sleep command into Functional test script to delay the script for specified time.
The code generated is:
Sleep(seconds)
Where seconds is the time entered in seconds fields.

Comment
During recording or editing, you can insert lines of comment text into RFT script. Comments are helpful for documenting and editing scripts. It inserts the text with appropriate comment delimiter (//) preceding each line.

By Renu Bala

Script maintenance is a great challenge faced by automation testers. As the course of development proceeds, applications undergo changes, which cause automation test scripts to break. For example, Developers change underlying attributes (like object name) that the test script rely upon to identify the object. So testers need to rework on scripts.

Script maintenance at some level is a fact of automation but too much maintenance can be a drain on team’s time, resulting in decreasing value of automation. Automation testing tool that build scripts that are resistant to breaking are extremely valuable.

Testers must constantly update scripts to handle minor application changes but testers may make mistakes when they update scripts.

One solution to these changes is to update the object map so that all scripts can reference updated object map and identify objects.

Second solution to these changes is Script Assure Technology introduced by Rational Functional Tester. This technology makes test scripts more resilient to changes in applications. With script assure technology, RFT evaluates the closeness of objects that it finds and attempts to match something that is closest. If objects are close enough, test continues with no intervention from tester and will log a warning so that tester is made aware of a possible discrepancy. So more tests can execute with less intervention, even with significant changes being made to objects in application. In this way RFT automatically finds changed target objects in application without object remapping. Benefit of this technology is reduced maintenance and more reliable scripts. Additionally, this flexibility is completely under tester’s control. Tester can determine what level of closeness is sufficient enough for the project

By Vaibhav Agarwal

Now a days most of us (in IT industry) know/have heard about Automated testing tools.

Rational Functional Tester (RFT), as the name says, is an automated functional testing tool from Rational. This tool tests your application automatically without human intervention.

IBM Rational Functional Tester is an object-oriented automated testing tool that lets you test a variety of applications. You can quickly generate scripts by recording tests against an application, and you can test any object in the application, including the object’s properties and data. Rational Functional Tester offers you a choice of scripting language and development environment — Java in the Eclipse framework or Microsoft Visual Basic .NET in the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Development Environment. That means that regardless of the language or platform your development staff has chosen, you should be able to integrate with them and leverage some of their expertise as you develop your automated tests.

Rational Functional Tester offers these powerful capabilities
• Play back scripts against an updated application
• Update recognition properties for an object
• Merge multiple test object maps
• Display associated scripts
• Use pattern-based object recognition
• Integrate with UCM

1. Ensure playback resilient to application changes with ScriptAssure technology -

Frequent changes to an application’s user interface can hamper test script execution. IBM Rational Functional Tester introduces an advanced ScriptAssure™ technology to accommodate these changes and avoid increases in maintenance overhead. ScriptAssure uses fuzzy matching algorithms to locate objects during test execution, even if the objects have changed since test creation.

2. Increase script re-use with wizard for data driven test creation –

Data driven tests are functional tests that perform the same series of test actions, but with varying data. IBM Rational Functional Tester can automatically detect data entered during test recording and prepare the test for data-driven testing. Using a spreadsheet-like data editor, you can then create customized data sets to be used by the test during playback. In this way, you can achieve test script re-use without time consuming manual coding.
 

3. Streamline automation with keyword testing –

Rational Functional Tester provides ability to define and automate keywords which can be reused in both functional and manual tests. This promotes script reuse and enables manual testers to easily and selectively leverage the power of automation within manual test cycles.

4. Proxy SDK –

This feature allows testers to define support for custom controls.

5. Choice of test editing language - Java or Visual Basic .NET –

Test script customization is mandatory in order to perform anything but the most basic tests. IBM Rational Functional Tester gives you a choice of powerful, mainstream scripting languages to make this possible. Choose between either Java or Visual Basic .NET - both options can be used with all the supported user interface technologies. By working with Functional Tester, testers quickly learn to work with basic language constructs and acquire programming skills that facilitate more productive communication with developers.

6. Validate dynamic data with dynamic data validation wizard –
 Validating dynamic data, such as time stamps or order confirmation numbers can be tedious time consuming task, involving complex manual coding. IBM Rational Functional Tester includes wizard driven support for regular expression dynamic data validation. Users can effortlessly validate dynamic data against template patterns without having to write complex code.
 

7. Manual Test Automation support –

For teams not yet prepared to automate all of their testing efforts, IBM Rational Manual Tester is included in the Rational Functional Tester product box. Rational Manual Tester brings control and organization to manual testing efforts, introducing automated data entry and data validation to manual.

 
8. Test script version control for parallel development –

Typically, more than one version of an application is deployed within an organization, and testers must therefore maintain groups of tests for each version. Without the help of automated version control, this can be extremely difficult. IBM Rational Functional Tester is designed to support automated version control, which not only provides a mechanism to maintain multiple test sets, but also enables parallel development and supports geographically dispersed teams, To help teams take advantage of this support, a full version of IBM Rational ClearCase LT, an entry-level version control tool designed for small project workgroups, is included in the product box. Rational Functional Tester users also have the option of upgrading to the standard version of IBM Rational ClearCase.

 
9. Native Java and Visual Basic .NET editor and debugger for advanced testers –

Test script editing is important, but it can be difficult without a good editor and debugger. IBM Rational Functional Tester delivers industrial-strength options to address this concern. Testers using Java can work in the Eclipse Java editor and those using Visual Basic .NET can work in Visual Studio .NET. Both integrated development environments offer a host of options to simplify test enhancement, including a helpful code-complete feature that suggests code to accelerate editing. GUI developers will find this feature particularly useful, as they can access it within the IDE they use to build the user interface.

 
10.Linux test editing and test execution support –

For cross-platform Java applications, IBM Rational Functional Tester offers scripting to create, edit, and execute tests on the Linux platform - including everything except a test recorder. It also supports the Windows platform for all recording, editing, and execution capabilities.

 
11.Add-on support available for testing 3270/5250 terminal-based applications –

Teams responsible for testing mixed workload environments - environments comprised of both Java/Web/Visual Studio .NET-based applications and mainframe-based applications - can purchase the IBM Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-based Applications. This extension enables automation and testing for 3270 and 5250 terminal-based applications, including automated data entry and response verification, using the testing tool and scripting language the tester favors for Windows and Linux-based applications.
  
12.Extended automated functional and regression testing for Siebel® and SAP® applications –

IBM Rational Functional Tester Extension for Siebel Test Automation interfaces to provide robust automation support for both Siebel 7.7 and 7.8. IBM Rational Functional Tester Extension Automated test creation, execution and analysis of SAP GUI applications.