How to create functional / UI-Tests for an existing web application - asp.net

I've got the interesting task to build complex workflow tests for an existing web application which has never had unit or integration tests (all testing by developers / users without structure or guidelines).
Setup
The target is an ASP.NET (no MVC) web application, that has been build over several years. There is no clean MVC or any other pattern, so the HTML output is very bad (generated IDs, not much css classes, in line css styles
--> hard to test).
The application is data-centric, so there is a lot to test and the status of the database is very important for the tests.
I'm thinking of the following workflow:
1. Reset Database to test start data
2. Run Tests which create and test data by simulation user interactions
Tools
I was playing around with Selenium IDE, but it does not feel structured enough.
I'm dreaming of a toolset, where I can write tests in (literate) coffeescript / javascript, that can be executed in the browser (no need for headless testing), but all tools I can find aim to test javascript functions and not user interactions.
My test steps need to be:
page loads
test if page has loaded correctly by searching for text A or counting elements in ul B
click on button C, wait for popup D, type text in field E
click save button and check if text from field E is shown in element F
Is jasmine able to test these kind of user interactions? I can only find jasmine tests for javascript functions or the existance of HTML elements, but not for complex workflows with test steps that rely on each other.
Thanks in advance!

Selenium IDE is not the way to go for this.
Selenium is built on the WebDriver JSON Wire Protocol. Having this 'base' means it has been very easily plugged into many many different languages, all using the same kind of API.
One of them being JavaScript:
https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/WebDriverJs
Disclaimer: the JS Bindings are very new!
I'm not sure I understand why you must do it in JavaScript, especially as I can see this severely limits your options.

I suggest IBM Rational Functional Tester. It's java based, making it very extensible. It's not Javascript, so be warned that test are written in java code. For most of it there's a recorder: you simply click around and it records your actions.
Regarding automated tests with it, here's my opinions .
It is a commercial product. I'm not affiliated with IBM but I work with RFT a lot.

You may want to look at RIATest for cross-platform cross-browser testing of web applications. It uses ECMAScript based script language which is very similar to JavaScript.
It works on Windows and Mac, supported browsers are Firefox, IE and Chrome. Automated testing scripts written on one platform/browser can be run against all other supported platforms/browsers.
It is certainly possible to automate the steps that you described. Dynamically generated IDs are not good but you should be able to use other properties (such as text, element type, etc.) to identify the HTML objects that you want to automate and test for.
(Disclaimer: I am a RIATest team member).

Related

Customized json report for karate framework [duplicate]

I want to have an option on the cucumber report to mute/hide scenarios with a given tag from the results and numbers.
We have a bamboo build that runs our karate repository of features and scenarios. At the end it produces nice cucumber html reports. On the "overview-features.html" I would like to have an option added to the top right, which includes "Features", "Tags", "Steps" and "Failures", that says "Excluded Fails" or something like that. That when clicked provides the same exact information that the overview-features.html does, except that any scenario that's tagged with a special tag, for example #bug=abc-12345, is removed from the report and excluded from the numbers.
Why I need this. We have some existing scenarios that fail. They fail due to defects in our own software, that might not get fixed for 6 months to a year. We've tagged them with a specified tag, "#bug=abc-12345". I want them muted/excluded from the cucumber report that's produced at the end of the bamboo build for karate so I can quickly look at the number of passed features/scenarios and see if it's 100% or not. If it is, great that build is good. If not, I need to look into it further as we appear to have some regression. Without these scenarios that are expected to fail, and continue to fail until they're resolved, it is very tedious and time consuming to go through all the individual feature file reports and look at the failing scenarios and then look into why. I don't want them removed completely as when they start to pass I need to know so I can go back and remove the tag from the scenario.
Any ideas on how to accomplish this?
Karate 1.0 has overhauled the reporting system with the following key changes.
after the Runner completes you can massage the results and even re-try some tests
you can inject a custom HTML report renderer
This will require you to get into the details (some of this is not documented yet) and write some Java code. If that is not an option, you have to consider that what you are asking for is not supported by Karate.
If you are willing to go down that path, here are the links you need to get started.
a) Example of how to "post process" result-data before rendering a report: RetryTest.java and also see https://stackoverflow.com/a/67971681/143475
b) The code responsible for "pluggable" reports, where you can implement a new SuiteReports in theory. And in the Runner, there is a suiteReports() method you can call to provide your implementation.
Also note that there is an experimental "doc" keyword, by which you can inject custom HTML into a test-report: https://twitter.com/getkarate/status/1338892932691070976
Also see: https://twitter.com/KarateDSL/status/1427638609578967047

Karate tests - problem with visiting PDF link from email in headless mode (run from Jenkins) [duplicate]

I want to have an option on the cucumber report to mute/hide scenarios with a given tag from the results and numbers.
We have a bamboo build that runs our karate repository of features and scenarios. At the end it produces nice cucumber html reports. On the "overview-features.html" I would like to have an option added to the top right, which includes "Features", "Tags", "Steps" and "Failures", that says "Excluded Fails" or something like that. That when clicked provides the same exact information that the overview-features.html does, except that any scenario that's tagged with a special tag, for example #bug=abc-12345, is removed from the report and excluded from the numbers.
Why I need this. We have some existing scenarios that fail. They fail due to defects in our own software, that might not get fixed for 6 months to a year. We've tagged them with a specified tag, "#bug=abc-12345". I want them muted/excluded from the cucumber report that's produced at the end of the bamboo build for karate so I can quickly look at the number of passed features/scenarios and see if it's 100% or not. If it is, great that build is good. If not, I need to look into it further as we appear to have some regression. Without these scenarios that are expected to fail, and continue to fail until they're resolved, it is very tedious and time consuming to go through all the individual feature file reports and look at the failing scenarios and then look into why. I don't want them removed completely as when they start to pass I need to know so I can go back and remove the tag from the scenario.
Any ideas on how to accomplish this?
Karate 1.0 has overhauled the reporting system with the following key changes.
after the Runner completes you can massage the results and even re-try some tests
you can inject a custom HTML report renderer
This will require you to get into the details (some of this is not documented yet) and write some Java code. If that is not an option, you have to consider that what you are asking for is not supported by Karate.
If you are willing to go down that path, here are the links you need to get started.
a) Example of how to "post process" result-data before rendering a report: RetryTest.java and also see https://stackoverflow.com/a/67971681/143475
b) The code responsible for "pluggable" reports, where you can implement a new SuiteReports in theory. And in the Runner, there is a suiteReports() method you can call to provide your implementation.
Also note that there is an experimental "doc" keyword, by which you can inject custom HTML into a test-report: https://twitter.com/getkarate/status/1338892932691070976
Also see: https://twitter.com/KarateDSL/status/1427638609578967047

Testing for valid HTML5 output using PHPUnit 4

How do you make unit tests for the HTML output of your PHP functions/scripts, specifically to check that the output is HTML5 valid?
Currently a can test functionality in PHPUnit and presentation with online copy/paste validators. But it would be much nicer if this could be integrated into the PHPUnit testing.
Is there a standard way to go about such things, or is it mainly a matter of using regular unit tests on functions which create the inserted content, and then making sure it looks correct in the browser/W3C Validator?
Similar question for older version of PHPUnit that no longer applies:
Unit tests for HTML Output?
What you looking for is behavior testing. Take a look at Behat
The Twine project (http://twineproject.sourceforge.net/doc/phphtml.html) replaces the copy/paste manual process. It might be useful; it still sends the HTML to the w3C site each time, which is not ideal for unit tests. (The W3C says all their stuff is open source and so you might be able to download it and run it locally... I couldn't find the download link though!)
An alternative approach is to use DomDocument::validate() However it requires the DTD to be referenced inside, and as this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/15245834/841830 explains, HTML5 has no DTD.
(I'm assuming you meant that you have functions that return HTML5 strings, and you want to unit test those functions: if you want to test the whole output of a web app, e.g. as run through Apache and seen in a browser, I would use CasperJS or Selenium. But this is high-level functional testing, notably slower to run than unit tests, so I recommend to unit test what can be unit tested: and I still cannot find an offline HTML5 validator for Casper/Phantom/Slimer nor for Selenium!)

Flex: Testing UI components at the click level?

I've been working on a Flex component and I'd like to write some automated tests for it. The trouble is, the UI testing tools I've looked at (FlexMonkey and Selenium Flex API) don't simulate "enough":
Most of the bugs which have come up so far relate to the way Flex deals with dragging and dropping, which these libraries can't simulate accurately enough. For example, I need to test a case where there is a "drop" event which occurs in the bottom half of a component – neither FlexMonkey nor Selenium Flex API can do that (they may simulate a mouse event, but they won't include coordinates).
So, is there any "good" way to automate that sort of testing?
Edit: After much research, it looks like the only piece of software that can do this is iMacros, which is Windows-only and the interface is... Lacking. So I'm going to be writing my own. Basically, it will put an HTTP interface on java.awt.Robot so code (in any language) can simulate mouse/keyboard events. If you're interested, PM me and I'll keep you updated.
Edit 2: I have published the first version of the framework I wrote, Blunderbuss, over at BitBucket: http://bitbucket.org/wolever/blunderbuss/ . You'll need Jython to run it (http://www.jython.org/), but after that the flex-client example should work.
Videos of Blunderbuss live over at Vimeo:
Automating Flex testing with Blunderbuss
Blunderbuss test suite running
At the moment this remains a proof-of-concept, as I haven't had the cycles to clean it up and make it more useable… But maybe enough people bothering me would give me that time :)
I've used Eggplant to test Flash and AIR apps without having to add any hooks into the code. It's a great tool but it's quite expensive. It simulates a real user by VNC-ing into a system and uses image recognition - among other things - to interact with the app.
I am definitely interested in your custom Java class, and (though I am not the best at Java (yet...)), I would be willing to help out if you're thinking of making this collaborative.
As to Flash MouseEvents. Unfortunately, there really isn't an accurate way to simulate the drag/drop experience in Flash. MouseEvents, when generated by the mouse, are handled in a very different way than regular events and while you could simulate actions by passing events into the handling functions, or by making the dispatcher fire a new DragEvent( DragEvent.DRAG_DROP..., it will not be the same as having the user interact with it. And for some functionality (like gaining access to the clipboard), nothing inside Flash will accomplish your goals.
To be honest, you're probably headed in the right direction -- using something which is not written in Flash to drive faked mouse events is probably your best bet.
I've never had to use it in Flex but i recently stumbled across some info on automation packages in the MS Surface SDK... after looking into it those classes automated user behavior which can be used for testing i.e. move a fake mouse to this point, perform this action. As you're using Flex mx.automation packages and classes. My guess (and hope) is that you'd be able to achieve what you want using these classes.
You could also try auto-hotkey - it is similarly a macro-editing program but it has proven to be very efficient and you can write scripts and set it up very easily.

How can I make my Selenium tests less brittle?

We use Selenium to test the UI layer of our ASP.NET application. Many of the test cases test longer flows that span several pages.
I've found that the tests are very brittle, broken not just by code changes that actually change the pages but also by innocuous refactorings such as renaming a control (since I need to pass the control's clientID to Selenium's Click method, etc) or replacing a gridview with a repeater. As a result I find myself "wasting" time updating string values in my test cases in order to fix broken tests.
Is there a way to write more maintainable Selenium tests? Or a better web UI testing tool?
Edited to add:
Generally the first draft is created by recording a test in the IDE. (This first step may be performed by QA staff.) Then I refactor the generated C# code (extract constants, extract methods for repeated code, maybe repeat the test case with different data, etc). But the general flow of code for each test case remains reasonably close to the originally generated code.
I've found PageObject pattern very helpful.
http://code.google.com/p/webdriver/wiki/PageObjects
more info:
- What's the Point of Selenium?
- Selenium Critique
maybe a good way to start is to incrementally refactor your test cases.
I use the same scenario you have selenium + c#
Here is how my code looks like:
A test method will look like somethink like this
[TestMethod]
public void RegisterSpecialist(UserInfo usrInfo, CompanyInfo companyInfo)
{
var RegistrationPage = new PublicRegistrationPage(selenium)
.FillUserInfo(usrInfo)
.ContinueSecondStep();
RegistrationPage.FillCompanyInfo(companyInfo).ContinueLastStep();
RegistrationPage.FillSecurityInformation(usrInfo).ContinueFinishLastStep();
Assert.IsTrue(RegistrationPage.VerifySpecialistRegistrationMessagePayPal());
selenium.WaitForPageToLoad(Resources.GlobalResources.TimeOut);
paypal.LoginSandboxPage(usrInfo.sandboxaccount, usrInfo.sandboxpwd);
Assert.IsTrue(paypal.VerifyAmount(usrInfo));
paypal.SubmitPayment();
RegistrationPage.GetSpecialistInformation(usrInfo);
var bphome = new BPHomePage(selenium, string.Format(Resources.GlobalResources.LoginBPHomePage, usrInfo.AccountName, usrInfo.Password));
Assert.IsTrue(bphome.VerifyPageWasLoaded(usrInfo));
Assert.IsTrue(bphome.VerifySpecialistProfile());
bphome.Logout();
}
A page Object will be something like this
public class PublicRegistrationPage
{
public ISelenium selenium { get; set; }
#region Constructors
public PublicRegistrationPage(ISelenium sel)
{
selenium = sel;
selenium.Open(Resources.GlobalResources.PublicRegisterURL);
}
#endregion
#region Methods
public PublicRegistrationPage FillUserInfo(UserInfo usr)
{
selenium.Type("ctl00_cphComponent_ctlContent_wizRegister_tUserFirstName", usr.FirstName);
selenium.Type("ctl00_cphComponent_ctlContent_wizRegister_tUserLastName", usr.LastName);
selenium.Select("ctl00_cphComponent_ctlContent_wizRegister_ddlUserCountry", string.Format("label={0}",usr.Country ));
selenium.WaitForPageToLoad(Resources.GlobalResources.TimeOut);
selenium.Type("ctl00_cphComponent_ctlContent_wizRegister_tUserEmail", usr.Email );
selenium.Type("ctl00_cphComponent_ctlContent_wizRegister_tUserDirectTel", usr.DirectTel);
selenium.Type("ctl00_cphComponent_ctlContent_wizRegister_tUserMobile", usr.Mobile);
return this;
}
}
Hope this helps.
How are you creating your Selenium tests, by recording them and playing them back? What we have done is build an object model around pages so that you call a method like "clickSubmit()" rather than clicking on an id (with a naming convention for these ids), which allows selenium tests to survive many changes.
You may or may not be able to write tests that are resilient to refactoring. Here's how to make the refactoring less painful: Continuous integration is essential.
Run them every day or every build. The sooner it's fixed, the easier.
Ensure devs can run the tests themselves. Again, the sooner it's seen and fixed, the easier.
Keep selenium tests few. They should focus on critical path / pri 1 test scenarios. Deep testing should be done at unit test level (or jsunit tests). Integration tests are always expensive and less valuable.
Hooking up on any low-level concepts like XPaths, CSS Selectors or IDs for end-to-end tests is a recipe for unstable tests.
I advise using testRigor to produce tests that won't break any time you run/change/improve your application a little bit.
The code analogous to the page object one above would look like this:
enter "Peter" into "First Name"
enter "Pen" into "Last Name"
enter "US" into "Country" below "User Data"
enter stored value "email" into "Email"
enter stored value "password" into "Password"
enter "415-123-4567" into "Direct Telephone"
enter "415-123-4568" into "Mobile Number"
click "Submit"
testRigor would associate texts that look like labels with the inputs so that as soon as from an end-user's perspective your page would look the same then the testRigor scripts will be green. Here is the doc.
disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of testRigor. I co-founded it because we had those exact issues ourselves.
Hope this helps.
There are no innocuous changes when it comes to test automation ;)
We use the SAFS framework with Rational Robot (RRAFS) to minimize impact to our automation scripts. There's still work to maintain the application map, but the scripts remain stable for the most part. The SAFS framework sounds very similar to the method cynicalman mentions, but already packages up the generic methods you would use in your scripts.
The SAFS site says there's partial support for Selenium, so this may work for you.
I've found that using XPath expressions in Selenuium-RC adds alot to the robustness of a test.
I write my tests in a similar manner. The first pass is often written via the IDE/Record to get most of my page-flow and click operations. Once I've got that, I begin stepping through the test via Selenium-RC adding assertions and changing absolute widget locators to more readable and friendly Xpath expressions. (as well as documenting the test! :) )
One thing to be aware of.. if your tests are xpath-heavy, they may run a little slower in IE6 due to its poor javascript execution abilities. (I have some test suites that take almost an hour longer to execute under IE than under FF. It's managable, but just something to keep in mind when you're writing the tests.)
Selenium in theory has an abstraction called UI Element (the documentation is here).
The features would be
abstract locators, indipendent on the very html implementation; this would map well to the concept of component or widget of a web framework,
rollup rules, allowing to merge several commands into a single more abstract command.
I've struggled a couple of days to leverage this feature but in the end I decided to abandon it, for the following reasons:
some concepts, such as that of offset locators (think of them as parts of a component) are not fully or usefully developed;
the feature is not fully supported in formatters and the more recent the formatter the less the feature is supported, hinting that the core Selenium evolution is leaving this feature behind;
it's not fully integrated in Selenium 2.0 (WebDriver).
I think Xpath is the best way to ensure robust selenium tests.
I am currently working on a library to help writing xpath expressions easier.
If interested, you can check it out here:
http://www.unit-testing.net/CurrentArticle/How-To-Write-XPath-for-Selenium-Tests.html

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