Monthly Archives: June 2016

Automation, Testing, XLT

Multi-Browser Support for Test Automation with XLT

1 Comment

Summary

In today’s post we will discuss the steps necessary to enhance an XLT-based test suite with multi-browser support. We will show how to tag your test cases to conveniently run them in different environments and execute the test suite in a local or remote fashion.

Introduction

Xceptance maintains a MIT licensed test suite at GitHub which demonstrates functional testing for large scale projects. With the suite we’ve put an emphasis on clear structures, naming and test case organization. Targeting Demandware’s SiteGenesis storefront at heart, the underlying concepts and mechanisms are valuable for everyone building test suites for comparable web applications with XLT. Next to being a template for test automation and best practices in test suite design, it can be a starting point ready to pick up in your very own projects. We regularly utilize it and want to encourage you to explore, employ and contribute.

A regular challenge in testing ecommerce applications is the variety of different browsers and platforms that are available today. As you probably know XLT, the test automation and load testing framework from Xceptance, is based on Selenium browser automation and the Webdriver API. Supporting multiple browsers therefore comes naturally. This blog post will demonstrate how XLT is able to streamline different testing environments directly in your test suite. You will learn how to execute your tests locally and remotely with the help of Sauce Labs and similar automated testing platforms. Along the way you will pick up some details about XLT as well as Script Developer and quickly find yourself equipped with a ready to use multi-browser test suite example.
Continue reading Multi-Browser Support for Test Automation with XLT →

Automation, Testing, XLT

Special Characters in Script Developer

Recently we received a support request regarding special characters in Script Developer. Perhaps other XLT users stumble across a similar requirement, so it’s a good idea to make the discussion available to the public.

First of all, some bad news: Up to now, Script Developer does not have explicit support for special characters, such as Line Feed (\n), Horizontal Tab (\t), Backspace (\b) or similar. For example, typing multiple lines of text – each line delimited by a newline character – into an element on your page is not possible just like that. Upon loading your script, XLT Script Developer normalizes all white-space characters contained in the target or value field of any command.

Of course, we don’t want to leave you out in the rain but provide a feasible solution.
Continue reading Special Characters in Script Developer →

Automation, XLT

Conditional Expressions in XLT

Motivation

Did you ever have to create multiple versions of your test cases to accommodate small differences of your test objects? Looking for a trade-off between good testing practice and minimizing project complexity. The following blog post reflects on this challenge and introduces you to a potential solution: Conditional Expressions.

Introduction

Xceptance introduced its test automation and load testing tool XLT 4.6 in February 2016 and with it we brought you conditionals. Today we want to shed some light on this new feature, the discussion that came along with it and why we finally decided to introduce it. This blog post will equip you with everything required to employ conditional expressions in your test scripts.

In computer programming, a condition or conditional expression performs an action depending on whether a given statement (the condition) evaluates to true or false. The programmer has the possibility to execute a part of the program only if certain circumstances are met. Now don’t worry, you do not need to become a full-fledged programmer to create your test cases with XLT Script Developer. But you should not skip on the possibilities this new feature is offering.

The Challenge

In testing typically you want your flow of execution to be linear, deterministic and transparent. The individual execution steps of your test case should be well-defined and yield the same results in a constant environment. If one execution step fails – e.g. an assertion does not check out – the whole test case always breaks and evaluates to failed. Run, rinse and repeat.

On the contrary often enough your real world test cases need to cater various scenarios. Think multi-region support of your page for example. Area specific content and functionality can quickly bring you into a catch-22 situation. Follow good practice in test case design, but deal with complexity and organizational nightmares in your test suite. Tiny differences in your test objects force you to keep multiple versions of your (already lengthy) test cases. Farewell maintainability!
Continue reading Conditional Expressions in XLT →