Software Testing Tools Blog – Testertools

Ascert announced today the general release of VersaTest Automator version 1.2. The latest version contains major enhancements in the key areas of security and interoperability.

The new security capabilities increase control over access to data and functions within the product. This increased control permits product access and operation by a wider set of users, both inside and outside the customer’s organization, because of the ability to configure per-user features and restrictions.

Interoperability enhancements include an additional method of integrating with HP’s Quality Center Software. This allows the VersaTest Automator product to control and run tests and then push its results directly into Quality Center. This benefits organizations with large installations of Quality Center as it reduces the IT management overheads necessary to integrate VersaTest Automator. This augmentation complements the existing VersaTest Automation Server Plugin for HP Quality Center Software Plug-in used to allow operation of VersaTest Automator from within the Quality Center Interface.

Another enhancement that aids interoperability is the ability for Test Plans within VersaTest Automator to make use of external programs and utilities, including testing products from third-parties. This provides greater reach, flexibility, and completeness to the testing process by increasing the amount of automated operations and validations that may be centrally performed on the applications under test.

“We are fortunate to have such a robust user base for our products,” says Simon Miles, Ascert’s Product Architect for the VersaTest product line. The enhancements in our latest release are largely due to user feedback as a result of increased product use and exposure at customer sites. Our customers are our partners and high levels of collaboration allow us to continue to grow the product in ways that meet the changing testing landscape. These relationships really help us to stay out ahead of the curve.”

In addition to time savings in testing, VersaTest Automator decreases the time involved in analyzing testing results. With an easy to use GUI interface and “audit capture” functionality, the product increases both testing accuracy as well as ROI. To find out more about VersaTest Automator, visit http://www.ascert.com/versatest.html or call one of the local Ascert offices.

GCT was my third coverage tool.  It instruments C code in a source-to-source translation, then passes the instrumented code to a compiler.  Its first major use was on a Unix kernel, so it is suitable for measuring the coverage of embedded systems.

In addition to branch and multiple-condition coverage, it also has boundary-condition and loop coverage.  I find those useful and inexpensive types of coverage, and I’m disappointed that more coverage tools don’t include them.

It also contains a type of coverage we used for evaluating stress testing of a multiprocessor kernel.

However: GCC was written in 1992 using the GNU C compiler (gcc) as a base.  For reasons too boring to explain, it still has most of the original GCC code in it.   The practical effect of that is that porting GCT is not as trivial as it should be. Although there are Linux and Solaris ports, I do not have appropriate configuration files for them.  (If you do, please send them to me.)  There are no ports to any version of Windows or other non-Unix operating systems.  I would be stunned to see one.

Since GCT is based on gcc 1.x, it does not handle some gcc 2.x constructs.  There has been a mostly-completed port from gcc 1.x to 2.x, but I have not used it myself.

GCC has no GUI for looking at coverage results.  The output is formatted like error messages from a compiler.  It comes with an Emacs mode (based on M-x next-error) that I rather liked.  But non-Emacs users are left out in the cold – as they are in so many things.

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There are many tools like Mockups, GUI Prototyping, Wireframing and other buzzwords like that, but the point is to improve user interface quality and usability.  Some of these tools are enterprise ready, some are in the early level of development with many issues and finally some of them are in the middle.  Today I want to write about the one which is the middle class representative, named FlairBuilder.  Let’s draw the short review, but first explore some basic requirements for such systems.

Usability

Why we are using wireframing, mockups?  Because we want to create high usability user interface.  Yes, but how to do that with poor usability tool?  Must be clear, fast, predictable and all the other adjectives regarding proper GUI design.

Presentation

The system must allow online mock-ups presentation, using a separate, free player: html files, flash presentations or screenshots.

Components

Should have a large set of components, but divided into groups.  Easy to find and with group of last used and favorites.  Necessarily include place holders.

Interactions

Must contain a set number of basic events: click, mouseover, etc.

Be online

Easy download, easy install and autoupdate.  Fine website with fresh info.

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VectorCAST/C++ is an integrated software test solution that significantly reduces the time, effort, and cost associated with testing C/C++ software components necessary for validating safety- and mission-critical embedded systems.

VectorCAST/C++ parses your source code and invokes code generators to automatically create the test code (stubs and drivers) required to construct a complete, executable test harness.  Once the test harness is constructed, utilities can be used to build and execute test cases, show code covered, and report static measurements.  Test data is maintained separately from the test harness, enabling easy automatic regression testing.

Key Features

* Complete test-harness construction for unit and integration testing
* Stubs and drivers built automatically
* Test execution from GUI or scripts
* Code-coverage analysis
* Regression testing
* Automatic tests based on decision paths
* User-defined tests for requirements-based testing
* Automated coding standards enforcement with C and C++
* Test execution playback to assist in debugging
* Integration with Telelogic’s Rhapsody® Modeling and DOORS® Requirements Tools

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What is dogtail?

Dogtail is a GUI test tool and automation framework written in Python. It uses Accessibility (a11y) technologies to communicate with desktop applications. dogtail scripts are written in Python and executed like any other Python program.

Dogtail is free software released under the GPL. Some example code is released to the Public Domain.  Movies of dogtail in action can be found in the media section.

Features

Dogtail has a number of features that aid in the automation and testing of desktop applications. These include:

* Scripts written in Python – Since dogtail uses Python as its scripting language, scriptwriters gain enormous power and flexibility in what they can do with dogtail. If you can do it in Python, you can do it with dogtail.

* Procedural API – A procedural scripting API allows for fast and easy blackbox tests to be written. Ace programmer credentials are not necessary to write useful automated scripts.

* Easily Extensible – dogtail is object oriented “under the covers” so more advanced users can write custom classes and helper libraries simply.

* Results and debug reporting

- Test case comparisons are written to a tab-delimited results file for easy processing. Debug information is written to its own log for detailed analysis of what happened during script execution.

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WebCorder is a free GUI software testing tool I developed in VB to allow for simple end user web testing.  Essentially the user presses record and navigates their way through a scenario, telling the program to check for text/images along the way and optionally taking screenshots.  At the end of the process you stop recording and save the script.  You can then play back the script either interactively or in batch mode, and the program will generate log files etc.

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