Using XML to maintain selenium automated test scripts

This article applies to test design developers who need to develop automated regression testing frameworks for test teams. Currently the industry's mainstream commercial automation testing tools and open source testing tools, all need testers familiar with the development of programming languages. But too much of the programming threshold allows many testers to stop and stare at automated tests. To solve the problem of this group, this paper introduces an automated test framework based on XML Maintenance Automation test script, and describes in detail the technical implementation details. XML is the only common language for data exchange because it is simple to write and easy to read and write data in any program. Using an xml-based Selenium Automated test framework, you can remove technical barriers to automated testing by enabling testers who are unfamiliar with programming to quickly write automated test cases similar to traditional functional test cases.

This article will first compare the industry's mainstream automated testing tools, simple analysis of the testers use these tools exist problems. Then, as an example of a traditional test case written by a tester, demonstrates how to use Selenium to write an automated test script file for it. Then, it introduces how to develop the Selenium Automation test framework based on XML. Finally, a brief description of how to write more features for the xml-based Selenium Automated test framework. By comparing two automated test implementations, the advantages of using XML to maintain Selenium automated test scripts are presented in a glance.

WEB Application Automated Regression testing tool list

With the development of the software company, the product line expands continuously, the software new version is introduced continuously, the support platform is more and more rich, how to test the software product efficiently and quickly becomes the new challenge of the software Test team. An increasing number of project teams are considering automating regression testing of software software products to consider selecting the automation tools that are appropriate for their own project teams. It's not easy to choose from a wide variety of automated tools. Testers are familiar with test tools such as the following table:

Table 1. Automated test tools

As shown in the table above, open source has Selenium, watir and so on, commercial testing tools such as rational functional Tester, rational Robot, QTP, SilkTest and so on. Open source tools are less expensive to use, but less functional than business tools. Business Tools can provide powerful recording capabilities for beginners ' liking, but recording scripts are not the best solution for automated testing. The test data in the recording script is mixed with the scripting program, which is difficult to maintain, and the effort to maintain the use case and to record the use case is not the same as when the test case changes significantly. It is worth mentioning that RFT, as an important part of the IBM Rational product family, attracts a large number of testers to use the tool. IBM frame framework, but also let RFT test script development Efficiency multiplier, you can developerWorks above found a lot of articles on this framework. The open Source tool, represented by Selenium, also attracts a large number of testers, and DeveloperWorks also publishes a number of articles, such as automated tests of complex WEB applications using layered Selenium frameworks, and so on. However, no matter what tools are used, testers need to be familiar with developing programming languages. The threshold of programming allows a large part of the familiar business testers to stop and stare at automated tests. So how can testers who are unfamiliar with programming be able to write automated regression test cases?

What business testers are good at

Obviously, testers are very familiar with the business and are good at writing traditional functional test case documents. This article will give you a simplified test case: Check the IBM developer community in the search engine Google site, as shown in the following table:

Table 2. Test Cases

The test case includes only test steps, each of which is divided into components: Step numbering, test steps, expected results, actual results, execution status, and so on. Obviously, the business tester will certainly write a much more complex use case. We use this simple test for demonstration purposes. Here's how to automate the test for this use case.