Home
Test Author Guide
This guide describes how to create test scripts and enhances them by applying different test elements such as dataset, variables, and verification points.
Extending the Functional Test perspective
You can use custom code to extend the default functional testing capabilities. You can write custom code and call the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code to be included in reports.
Rational® Functional Tester proxy SDK
Extend automated functional testing support for your application's user interface controls.
Rational® Functional Tester architecture
Rational® Functional Tester can be extended to perform additional functions for which it needs to communicate with the application under test (AUT). To do that Rational Functional Tester first establishes a communication channel to the AUT which is called enablement.

Test Author Guide
This guide describes how to create test scripts and enhances them by applying different test elements such as dataset, variables, and verification points.
- Testing in the UI Test perspective
  When you develop web applications, Windows-based applications, or mobile applications, you can use IBM® Rational® Functional Tester to create functional tests for these applications. You must first record the tests and then use Rational Functional Tester to run the tests before you can view the test results.
- Testing in the Functional Test perspective
  When you develop Java, HTML, or Terminal-based applications, you can use IBM® Rational® Functional Tester to create traditional functional tests for these applications. You must first record the tests and then use Rational Functional Tester to run the tests before you can view the test results.
- Extending the UI Test perspective with custom code
  You can use custom code to extend the default Web UI testing capabilities. You can write custom Java™ code and call the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code to be included in reports.
- Extending the Functional Test perspective
  You can use custom code to extend the default functional testing capabilities. You can write custom code and call the code from the test. You can also specify that results from the tests that are affected by your custom code to be included in reports.
  - Rational® Functional Tester proxy SDK
    Extend automated functional testing support for your application's user interface controls.
    - Introduction to proxy SDK
      With Rational® Functional Tester proxy software development kit (SDK) you can extend automated functional testing support for your application's user interface controls (GUI test objects), beyond what is provided by Rational Functional Tester by default. The proxy SDK provides detailed documentation, API references and ready-to-use samples and tutorials on how to extend Rational Functional Tester to add support for testing new controls. It also helps you to extend already supported controls from the existing domains. You can develop proxies manually or by using the proxy wizards driven approach.
    - Rational® Functional Tester architecture
      Rational® Functional Tester can be extended to perform additional functions for which it needs to communicate with the application under test (AUT). To do that Rational Functional Tester first establishes a communication channel to the AUT which is called enablement.
      - Process Model
        There are two types of Rational® Functional Tester processes. The application under Test (AUT) processes are known as Rational Functional Tester server side processes. The recorder, playback, objects inspector, and the IDE (Eclipse or Visual Studio .Net) processes are known as Rational Functional Tester client side processes.
      - High level interactions
        Rational® Functional Tester client processes interact with the application under test (AUT) and gather relevant information to perform operations such as recording, playback, and object inspections. This section provides an overview of the interactions between the client processes and the AUT processes. Rational Functional Tester communicates with the AUT through a shared memory inter process communication (IPC) layer.
      - Proxy model
        Rational® Functional Tester interacts with application-under-test (AUT) controls through two elements: Proxy objects and Test objects.
      - Application under test interactions
        There are several levels of requests in the test process. In each level there are various interactions between Rational® Functional Tester and the application under test (AUT).
    - Proxy development
      A challenge in functional testing is the variety of user interface (UI) frameworks that are available (for example, Java™ and HTML) and controls (for example, button and table) that testing must support. UI frameworks differ in architecture and programming models and the controls differ in their inheritance hierarchy, methods, properties data, and user actions.
    - TestObjects
      TestObjects are the script-side interfaces for proxies and application under test (AUT) controls. A TestObject is a connection point between the test script and a ProxyObject that connects to the real object in the AUT. During recording, statements are recorded and objects are added to the Object Map. The script uses the information from the Object Map to construct and find TestObjects.
    - ProxyObject hierarchy
      While developing new proxies by extending existing proxies for any domain, it is important to understand the existing proxies and the hierarchies, so that you extend the right proxy.
    - TestObject class diagram and canonical names
      Rational® Functional Tester has a predefined set of TestObjects that are hierarchically grouped and each TestObject has a set of predefined methods.
    - SubItems
      SubItems are part of TestObjects. The ObjectMap does not contain the SubItems, because they are not mapped.
    - Value classes and value managers
      The following code examples show several value classes and value managers.
    - TestData types
      The Rational® Functional Tester framework calls the getTestDataTypes() and getTestData(String) proxy methods for extracting data from controls for verification and reference. These methods are used during the creation and play back of data verification points. You can override the getTestDataTypes() method to add more specific data types for a control.
    - Proxy exceptions
      Rational® Functional Tester has a set of predefined exceptions that covers wide ranges of errors that are usually expected while functional testing. These exceptions are available for both the Java™ and .NET proxy development frameworks.
    - Proxy development best practices
      Following best practices while you develop proxies can help make your work more efficient and effective. Consider these methods to enhance your development efforts.
  - Customizing a script template
    Rational® Functional Tester uses its default script templates to format and provide basic information when you create a script. You can customize the information and format by customizing the script templates.
  - Using the API to edit functional test scripts
    These topics describe how you can take advantage of the Rational® Functional Tester application programming interface (API) or the scripting framework to make changes to functional test scripts. As a general rule, the modifications that you make with the scripting SDK, should emulate as closely as possible, the user interactions to test with the application-under-test.
- Experimental Features
  Rational® Functional Tester contains a set of pre-releases that enable you to test various experimental features. These experimental features, while still in progress, are introduced early in the release to seek your feedback on its overall functionality and performance. You can play around with these capabilities before they are made available and supported as a general feature in an upcoming release.

Rational® Functional Tester architecture

Rational® Functional Tester can be extended to perform additional functions for which it needs to communicate with the application under test (AUT). To do that Rational® Functional Tester first establishes a communication channel to the AUT which is called enablement.

Rational® Functional Tester currently supports testing Java™, .Net, HTML, Siebel, SAP, AJAX, Flex, and native Microsoft® Windows® GUI Controls and each of these supported environments are known as domains. Establishing the communication channel is specific to a domain. You must establish a communication channel for every process and then you need to test the channel. Rational® Functional Tester interacts with the AUT process and its controls through the established communication channel to get required information. As part of establishing communication, Rational® Functional Tester creates the DomainImplementation object instance in the AUT, which in turn abstracts and acts as an interface to provide domain specific details back toRational® Functional Tester. The DomainImplementation object does the following tasks:

Gets the top level objects
Registers available proxy objects that are available for the domain
Creates the ProxyObject for a given control