My Experience With Test Automation

Yet Another Review: And I Thought I knew QTP By Tarun Lalwani

2011-12-18T19:40:00.000-08:00

In Short the book is about a Test Automation Engineer who attends an interview with a popular company. Nurat (The Test Automation Engineer) in the process of attending the interview he is challenged continuously on different aspects of QTP and Programming. Though he over comes most of the challenges, he recollects/discovers a lot of things that he might have ignored before.

The book is collection of a lot of challenges/myth busters. It is for every one who has some working knowledge of QTP. Since the book is not a structured collection of topics, if you are a beginner then it is suggested to read QTP Unplugged (by Tarun Lalwani) before this book.

A Utility called "CLIP"

2010-02-02T01:25:00.000-08:00

Some one in a forum asked about how to capture the output text of a command that is executed in commandline. After some search on web i came across a utility in windows called "CLIP.EXE".

This captures the command output to clipboard. The way it works is very simple. Suppose we want to retrieve the output of help command:

C:\>HELP CLIP

Now open any text editor other than Notepad(which is having a limitation) and paste.

You can see that the output of command HELP is redirected to clipboard and you can paste it any where.

The way in which you apply this tool can make it a really wonderful utility.

regards,

Hari Sreekanth Upadrasta

Dotnetfactory 2: DATE/TIME format conversion

2009-11-03T03:45:00.000-08:00

Earlier i have created a .dll built in vb to convert the given date/time to a specified format. There are two problems with it:

Companies(most of them) won't allow people to use external dlls or exes to be used or downloaded.
There was no way to specify the input date format ie if the i/p date is in "MMyydd" format you can not convert it.

So here is a work around:
'Start of code*************************************************************************
msgbox DateTimeConverter("670919","yyMMdd","dd-MMM-yyyy")
Function DateTimeConverter(InputDate,InputFormat,OutputFormat)
Set DateTime =DotNetFactory.CreateInstance("System.DateTime").ParseExact(InputDate, InputFormat, culture )
DateTimeConverter = DateTime.tostring(OutputFormat)
Set DateTime = Nothing : Set culture = Nothing
End Function
'End of code**************************************************************************
Enjoy...

Dotnetfactory 1: Searching Files in a directory/folder including the subdirectories

2009-11-03T00:52:00.000-08:00

I have decided to post tips or my findings on using .net in QTP .So the first tip is searching files in side a folder. This piece of code retrieves the file names and the file path with the specified pattern even if they are in the subfolders.
'Start of code ************************************************************************* Set SearchOpt = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance( "System.IO.SearchOption")
Set dirInfo = DotNetFactory.CreateInstance( "System.IO.Directoryinfo",,"C:\New Folder" )
Set Ofiles= dirInfo.GetFiles( "*.pdf",SearchOpt.AllDirectories)
For i = 0 to Cint(Ofiles.Length)-1
Print Ofiles.getvalue(i).DirectoryName & "\" & Ofiles.getvalue(i).Name
Next
'End of Code *************************************************************************

Please help yourself by creating functions that you want.

When not to place positive condition in "If"

2009-09-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

It is general practice to keep positive conditions(some thing we are expecting to happen) in If part of the "If Else". But there will be situations which you have to be really careful about doing so. Consider a Test Automation Project where you want to run some 100 Test Script in a batch. So in this condition you may ask your Test not to stop if an error occours. So you use "On Error Resume Next" here is a sample script:
On Error Resume Next
If Browser("brow").Page("pag").link("lnk").exist Then
Reporter.reportevent micpass,"checking link","link lnk exists"
Else
Reporter.reportevent micfail,"checking link","link lnk does not exists"
End If
Just copy the code(no need of any object repository) and run it in QTP. WoW you will observe the your script passed(with out object repository or any thing). Similarly cpoy and run the below code:
On Error Resume Next
If not(Browser("brow").Page("pag").link("lnk").exist)Then
Reporter.reportevent micfail,"checking link","link lnk does not exists"
Else
Reporter.reportevent micpass,"checking link","link lnk exists"
End If
Now the script fails and it explains my statement.I know that i am not good at explaining things so i leave the rest to you.Thanks for reading

Skip the Page Object

2009-08-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

But why?
Because i don't need it(Page).
Use?
Reduces time by a fraction of actual time.
How to use?
Just delete the Page Object
Browser("Google").link("Advanced Search").click

On How i was fooled by Debugger using Dictionary Object in QTP

2009-06-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Recently i was working on a project where i have been using Dictionary object a lot. In a function i had to retrieve the number of Items that i have added to the Dictionary.
But to my utter dismay I found that the number of items in the dictionary turned out to be two more than the items actually added to it. So I tried to find out of how did that happened, when I was not able to, I googled a lot (thinking that dictionary objects may be collecting some garbage value)but found nothing that could satisfy me. So I just left it there.
The other day I started working on other things where I had to add some variables to debug viewer and verify their values in runtime. After the second run of the test I found that the values of the variables that I added to the debug viewer are having value as EMPTY. Then I realized the real culprit for making me and my dictionary object go bonkers is THE DEBUG VIEWER

How did this happen:
I entered two dictionary items in to the debug viewer for which the keys are non existent.
And the next time I ran my script, the items got initialized to empty (Dictionary can take Empty values).
So as a victim of the Debug Viewer I just want to tell you a few things.

Points that should be kept in mind while using debugger while debugging

Remove all the items from the debug viewer after debugging.
QTP can hang if you have placed exist statement in the debug viewer and start your script.
QTP can be very slow if you debug your scripts with lot of “Exist” statements in it(debug viewer).
And Finally don’t do the mistake I have done(Dictionary can take Empty values)

With Regards,

AVictim

Creating/Using VBA function Library in QTP/VBscript

2009-03-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

Hi,

So finally i broke the shackles and started posting in my blog.I have been working on some issues Recently.In the process i came to know that vba is somewhat superior to vbscript in Test Automation scripts development(Check this link).So i started creating a function library in vba for use in vbscript and succeded upto an extent.

Here is my procedure:

There are lots of Advantages of using a vba function library in qtp/vbscript which will be mentioned in my next post until then happy scripting.

Convert any DATE/TIME format to any DATE/TIME format.

2008-10-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Hi,

Finally i think i have done what i have thought of doing from long time. This has been bugging me from a long time.Now we can convert almost any DATE/TIME format to any required DATE/TIME format.

Suppose you want to convert 12,jan 2008 to january,08-12. you can just do that as simple as this:

reformat = DTFormat("12,jan 2008","MMMM,YY-DD")

Procedure:

Download the Zip File DTFormat to your QTP's Bin folder(or any where you want).
Unzip it (The folder contains three files DTFormat.dll , DTFormat.vbs and DTFormat.Doc).
Double click on DTFormat.vbs file.
Enter the name with which you want to use this functionality in QTP.
Click OK button.

This is very powerful indeed Read the Document in the zip file to know the power of it.

This is also a powerful time converter as well.

regards,

Masking Passwords

2008-10-07T04:03:00.000-07:00

Today i had a weird situation.i had to enter my password in a driver script before my project mates and my manager, to show them a demo of how it works.The situation is so weird that i can't ask them to turn to the other side nor was i capable of entering passwords faster(i have to enter password in a inputbox).

So, i thought of exploring it a bit and did some Google search and got some piece of code it uses the property of the password element of the HTML.

Here is the code:

Sub RunScript

OKClicked.Value = "OK"

End Sub

Sub CancelScript

OKClicked.Value = "Cancelled"

End Sub

</SCRIPT>

<BODY>

Password: </font><font face="Arial">

<input id=runbutton class="button" type="button" value=" OK "

name="ok_button" onClick="RunScript">

<input id=runbutton class="button" type="button" value="Cancel"

name="cancel_button" onClick="CancelScript">

</BODY>

Copy the code and paste it in note pad and save it in your C drive as "Password.htm"

Now open another notepad, paste the code below and save it as Password.vbs

Set objExplorer = WScript.CreateObject _

("InternetExplorer.Application", "IE_")

objExplorer.Navigate "file:///C:\Scripts\password.htm"

objExplorer.ToolBar = 0

objExplorer.StatusBar = 0

objExplorer.Width = 400

objExplorer.Height = 350

objExplorer.Left = 300

objExplorer.Top = 200

objExplorer.Visible = 1

Do While (objExplorer.Document.Body.All.OKClicked.Value = "")

Wscript.Sleep 250

Loop

strPassword = objExplorer.Document.Body.All.UserPassword.Value

strButton = objExplorer.Document.Body.All.OKClicked.Value

objExplorer.Quit

Wscript.Sleep 250

If strButton = "Cancelled" Then

Wscript.Quit

End If

'Now you can use the entered password

msgbox strPassword

Now double click on the Password.vbs file

Remember there are other ways of doing it even more effectively but this is the most robust way(it works independent of O/S).

Regards,

Automation Outlook:Verify Mail in Outlook

2008-09-04T01:24:00.000-07:00

Hi,
We have seen in my previous post on howto send email no lets look at how to verify them.

olFolderInbox = 6
varSubject = "Test Mail" 'The subject of your mail
Set objOutlook = CreateObject("outlook.application")
Set objNameSpace = objOutlook.GetNameSpace("MAPI")
Set Inbox = objNameSpace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set Mail = Inbox.Items.Restrict("[Subject] = " & Chr(34) & varSubject & Chr(34) )
'The above line is used to filter mails by subject similarly u can use "From" in place of subject.
if Mail.Count = 1 then
Msgbox "Mail Found"
Else
Msgbox "Mail Not present or there are More than one mail with same subject"
End if

Thats it for now .

Automating Outlook:Creating Outlook Items-Mail

2008-08-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

Hi,
Wondering how to send a mail just check below.
'Make sure that outlook is open
Set oOutlook = GetObject(,"Outlook.Application")
Set oMailItem = oOutlook.CreateItem(olMailItem)
oMailItem.Display
oMailItem.To = "RecieverMail@mail.com"
oMailItem.Subject = "AutomaticMail"
oMailItem.Body = "This is Mail Body"
Set oAttachment = MailItem.Attachment
oAttachment.Add "C:\My Documents\Sample.xls"
oMailItem.Send
Here the previous sentence may give a popup so try using send keys method
like this
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.SendKeys "%s"
So here comes the end check this blog for further tips on Outlook Automation.

Before Automating SAP using QTP

2008-08-05T02:52:00.000-07:00

Hi,

I have been working on a SAP implementation testing project from long time. I had a chance to work on Automating SAP. As you know about a famous Quote "Please read the instruction document before proceeding" is never followed either because of confidence or ignorance.

OK iam done with saying philosophy.

and these are the basic settings you need to enable scripting on your SAP GUI for windows apps

1) Client side setting

2) Server side setting

Client side setting:Upon logging on to the SAP R/3 ,click on Customizing of Local Layout SAP toolbar button as shown below:

And click on Options button. The following window opens. Navigate to Scripting tab and select "Enable scripting" checkbox and deselect the other two options below the "Enable scripting" checkbox.This complets enabling clientside scripting.

Serverside Setting:Run the transaction code RZ11 ,this opens Maintain Profile Parameters page enter sapgui/user_scripting and click on Display button.

this opens

check if Profileval is set to TRUE else click on change value button and change the value of profileval to TRUE.

This completes our Enable scripting process.

A Word A Day 1st Day API

2008-07-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

This is a Post started by Bughunterz as a part of making test automation practitioners get updated with the jargons used in Test Automation and know how they are used.Let's get started.

API(Application Programming Interface): An API is a guide(remember it is just a guide) which keeps in it all the constants , objects and the object's methods and parameters with which the application or the application's features can be used in another program.

EX: Most of you might have came across QTP automation object model documentation this is QTP's automation API.

Another EX: Speech API(SAPI) is an API developed by Microsoft to allow the use of speech recognition and speech synthesis within Windows applications(Office).Here the Office applications are using the SAPI.

In the same way if your manager comes to you and asks you to make your script speak once your test is completed.

try the following lines in your QTP or VBscript editor and run it:

'**********************************************************************************

Dim voice

Set voice = CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice")

voice.speak "Yahoooo, it is working"

'**********************************************************************************

If you get a chance to look at the SAPI you will find that SpVoice is the object and speak is the method of the object SpVoice:

Looks interesting right.Just try some thing else now.

Error: "Object required: 'WScript'"

2008-07-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hi,
After a day of Introspection i finally got some time to sit on my Blog and answer a Question which i faced frequently.
QTP is throwing error " Error: "Object required: 'WScript'" " what can be the reason?
Thanks to Eric Lippert's blog "Fabulous Adventures In Coding".
Before going into the details i would like to ask a question
"What is this Wscript Object?" or "What does this Wscript Object signify?"

Here is the answer: It represents the state of a WSH process(When you click on your vbs file the WSH process starts).The whole point of the WScript object is that it represents everything about the presently running Windows Script Host

The WScript object exposes various properties about the running script and the WSH environment. Now If we run a QTP test tests they run in some QTP host but not WSH.

So how can we expect the Wscript Object to be used with out a WSH process Actually running.

At this point of time we can't do much but not to use Wscript object in QTP.

Auto Lock your computer after running QTP scripts

2008-07-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

Hi,
(Story)
Most of us who worked on some projects involving execution of a lot of test cases keep our tests running and go out for a break.

Recently some thing serious happened to my colleague. He is a serious automation guy he automated every thing from blocking inputs(mouse/keypad) sending mails to clients automatically after tests and lot more.So he started his tests and went home as he usually does.
But the next day morning his mailbox is kept opened.Though nothing serious happened.
The thing is he switches off the monitor but never locks it(Since scripts cant run on locked machines,He even placed a script to make sure that the system is unlocked all the time when execution is going on) so some one accessed his mail.
So that is the story and the result is this.
Auto Locker(skip the story)
'*********************************************************************************
'This Script locks computer can be used after the main script execution
Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
sCmd = "%windir%\SYSTEM32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation"
oShell.Run sCmd, 0, False
'**********************************************************************************
The script with which i used to play pranks on my colleagues is used after that incident in our driver script.
*Never place this script in QTP it won't work.
*Place this in your driver script.

Clear the basics: Can we use any scripting language other than VBscript with QTP?

2008-07-04T00:27:00.000-07:00

This is one point over which most of my colleagues get confused often.
when i asked the above question most of them answered "i think we can use Jscript as well".The reason can be most of them are new to Test Automation.So, just of thought of clearing some doubts.

QTP can't use any scripting language other than VBscript for scripting (This is language used by us in QTP tests).Though we can do it indirectly(as mentioned in http://www.softwareinquisition.com/). But it is indirect, in the sense making my friend(WebBrowser) cry(execute JavaScript) if i(QTP) can't cry.

We can write our QuickTest Automation programs(These are the programs written to automate the actions that we do on QTP Ex: opening QTP, Running test,Establishing QC connection Etc) in any language and development environment that supports automation. For example, you can use: VBScript, JavaScript, Visual Basic, Visual C++, or Visual Studio.NET.

Reference:QTP help doc

Lesson Learned: "After every thing fails, read the instruction document"

How to leverage QTP's inbuilt HTML results generator?

2008-07-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

Hi,
QTP has a inbuilt feature to generate results in HTML format. The only problem is by default it will be deactivated and to generate the result in HTML format we have to open the test results in results viewer and export it to HTML format by using "Export to HTML file" option.

But some of our test managers might come up with a brilliant idea(At least they think it is) of sending a mail to Client and/or Managers with the results file attached with it as soon as the test is completed Automatically.

So just thought of helping out poor guys.
Actually QTP can generate html results Automatically like normal results file the only thing that that you should do is to set the value of data in the key "Active" in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\Logger\Media\Log" to "1"
To change this run regedit in run and click OK button.Navigate along the path click on log on the right side you will find Active key double click it and change the value to 1.

And if don't want to change the registry data or if you want to do it pragmatically then here is a code that you can attach to your test
The code will set the value of Active key to 1 and again change it back to the previous state.Place this script in your driver script.(This won't work in QTP)

'***********************************************************************************
Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

KeyVal= objshell.regread("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\Logger\Media\Log\Active")

objshell.RegWrite"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\Logger\Media\Log\Active",1,"REG_DWORD"

Set qtApp = CreateObject("QuickTest.Application")
qtApp.Launch
qtApp.Visible = True qtApp.Open "C:\Documents and Settings\Bughunterz\Desktop\Test", True
Set qtResultsOpt = CreateObject("QuickTest.RunResultsOptions") qtResultsOpt.ResultsLocation = "C:\Documents and Settings\Bughunterz\Desktop\Test1"
set qttest = qtapp.testqtTest.Run qtResultsOptqtApp.Quit

objshell.RegWrite"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest Professional\Logger\Media\Log\Active",KeyVal,"REG_DWORD"

WScript.Quit
'************************************************************************************
The results file in html format will be present in the result folder under the folder "Log"
with the name "LogFile"

Regards,

Examining the sync method of browser/page in QTP

2008-07-02T03:05:00.000-07:00

Hi,
Many testers might have faced an issue with the sync method when they want to make the script wait for the browser to refresh.
But the problem here is sync method is doing the job it is meant to do which is Synchronizing.
Here synchronization means "Waits for the browser to complete the current navigation"(as per help doc). Here the sync method will wait until the navigation is completed i.e until the title of browser changes.But the objects will not get loaded completely just when the title changes.

So it is better to respect sync method for what it is doing and switch over to other methods like Wait,WaitProperty or if you want a robust and flexible method use the one mentioned in my previous post-http://bughunterz.blogspot.com/2008/06/having-problem-with-synchonization-and.html

QTP is reconizing a Browser/SAPGuisession/SWFWindow or something else , what is the reason?

2008-07-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

Q: QTP is Recording WEB/SAPGui/.Net objects as Windows Objects , How to resolve the issue?(if the necessary addins are enabled and working fine)
A: Here is the flow to resolve this issue:

Open the AUT after opening QTP.
if it works fine else
Open "Record and run Settings" from "Automation"
If you Don't have any specific Record and run Settings then check "Record and run on any open **********"(first option in every Tab).And click on OK button.
If you have any specifications like opening a particular browser or SAPGUIsession etc then make sure that the option "Do not record and run on ********** that are already open" is unchecked. And click on OK button.

if you still face the issue post it to me

Highlighting An object when using descriptive programming in QTP for newbies

2008-07-01T03:17:00.001-07:00

Hi,
This is my second post today.I am having an empty day so thought of just mentioning some issues. Most of the newbies find descriptive programming a bit confusing.The reason can be object repository of QTP is not only a collection of objects but it also embeds lots of other functionalities like Highlighting,Adding, Locating object etc. These functionalities are compromised while using Descriptive Programming. But to the rescue There is a hidden method of every object that QTP recognises. This function highlights the objects in the AUT .
(Open google.com before running the code) it can be used in this way:
Browser("name:=Google").Page("title:=Google").Webedit("name:=q").Highlight
This is one of the popular method while using Descriptive Programming and is widely used.

Having problem with Synchonization and Security Popups of Web Applications?You may like to look at this.

2008-06-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

Hi,

When Automating Web Based application one of my colleague faced a weired situation. He had two list boxes on a page. He used the code as below:

Browser("Browser").Page("Page").weblist("weblist1").select "USA"

Browser("Browser").Page("Page").weblist("weblist2").select "California"

and as a surprise the script failed after the second step.Upon checking the application he found that the value "California" is not selected but the second step is executed successfully. So we took up the issue and found that the values in the second listbox is dependent on the first list box. The page gets refreshed as soon as the first list box is selected. So our second step is executed even before the page is completely refreshed.This is a serious synchronizaton problem.

Hence we thought of proposing a generalized solution to this sync . But our problems multiplied when we encountered popups in between.

Security Popup Dialog Clicker and browser Synchroniser:
The solution for this problem is the script should wait for the popups until the browser is busy refreshing the page and click on the ok button to proceed. The solution designed was based on the following logic:
Q: When can a popup occur in a web based application?
A: When a page is refreshed, navigated, when a link or a button is clicked Etc and the list goes on.
But one thing you should observe when a popup occurs only when the Browser is busy and as soon as the Browser’s state is not busy the Popups cease to come up.
If you can check the runtime Properties of the Browser when a popup occur you will observe something like this:

Here the Busy property is “True” which means the Browser is still busy and has the chance to get the Popups.

In a Nutshell:
“We are going to make our script check for Popups while the Browser is busy. And since the browser gets busy only if we do some operations on it, we append those operations to wait for browser to complete navigation and to click on Popups when they appear”.
The code written below is for “Click” method in the “WebButton” Class.In the same way it can be used for “Click” method of “Link” Class or “Select” method of “WebList” Class.

'The Function checks for popups and clicks on “ok” button if the popups exist until the browser is 'busy
'Creator: Hsupadrasta
'Created Date: 10th June, 2008
'************************************************************************************

Function Click(Obj)
Obj.Click
Do while Browser(“Index:=0”).Object.Busy
If Dialog("nativeclass:=#32770").WinButton("nativeclass:=Button","text:=&Yes").Exist(0) Then
Dialog("nativeclass:=#32770").WinButton("nativeclass:=Button","text:=&Yes").Click
End if
Loop
End Function
'************************************************************************************
'This Main script overrides the WinButton’s existing Click method with userdefined click method
'Creator: Hsupadrasta
'Created Date: 10th June, 2008
'************************************************************************************

RegisterUserFunc "WebButton", "Click", "Click" 'This should be at the start of the Script

Browser("abcd").Page("abcd").WebButton("abcd").click 'Somewhere in the script`
'*************************************************************************************

The first Statement in main script registers the click function defined to the WebButton Class and in turn overrides the existing Click method of WebButton.

The obj object in the function represents The object that called it-

Browser("abcd").Page("abcd").WebButton("abcd")
And “Click” method here represents the original Click method of WebButton

And Browser(“Index:=0”) represents the active browser and the Busy property represents the state of browser .if the browser is busy the value will be True and hence enters the loop else the value will be False and loop ends.

Advantages:

“It makes the script wait until the browser is busy or not fully loaded”. Some of you might have faced the problem in which script may not fill some fields and with out throwing any error. It can keep an end of most of the synchronization issues in Web Environment.
“It can click on any no of Popups with out calling reusable functions(which can’t deal with unexpected Popups) or Recovery scenarios which slow down script unnecessarily” .