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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 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.
Functional test assets
This section describes the different types of functional test assets that are available in Rational® Functional Tester.

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.
  - Preparing the functional test environment
    This section describes the tasks you must perform to configure the functional test environment.
  - Managing functional test projects
    A functional test project stores application test assets such as scripts, object maps, verification point baseline files, and script templates. You must create a functional test project before you can record scripts.
  - Functional test assets
    This section describes the different types of functional test assets that are available in Rational® Functional Tester.
  - Working with functional test scripts (Windows-only)
    This section describes the process of creating functional test scripts to test your applications.
  - Working with verification points
    Verification points verify that a certain action has taken place, or verify the state of a control or an object. When you create a verification point, you are capturing information about a control or an object in the application to establish this as baseline information for comparison during playback.
  - Driving functional tests with external data
    This section describes techniques you can use to data-drive functional tests with external data.
  - Testing terminal-based applications
    Use the Rational® Functional Tester Terminal-based Applications feature to create test scripts and automate your host-application test cases. You can test host attributes, host field attributes, and screen-flow through a host application. It uses terminal verification points and properties, as well as synchronization code to identify the readiness of terminal for user input.
  - Troubleshooting issues
    You can find information about the issues or problems that you might encounter while you work in the Functional Test perspective of Rational® Functional Tester. You can also find the details about the causes and resolutions that you can apply to fix the issues.
- 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.
- Extending the functionality in the Visual Studio IDE
  These topics describe various ways that you can customize Rational® Functional Tester or use the application programming interface (API) to extend Rational Functional Tester functionality.
- 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.

Functional test assets

This section describes the different types of functional test assets that are available in Rational® Functional Tester.

A typical Rational® Functional Tester test script object includes these files:

Script file ( scriptname.java for Rational® Functional Tester, Eclipse Integration, or scriptname.vb for Rational® Functional Tester, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Integration)

This file is created through recording.

Script helper file ( scriptname ScriptHelper.java for Rational Functional Tester, Java Scripting, or scriptname ScriptHelper.vb for Rational Functional Tester, VB.NET Scripting)

Each script has a script helper file that is generated after recording.

Shared test object map file ( kadov_tag{{<ignored>}}filename.rftmap kadov_tag{{</ignored>}}) or private test object map file (scriptname.rftxmap )

Each script has a map file. The map file can be associated with only one script (*. rftxmap ) or shared among many scripts (*. rftmap ). To prevent users from accidentally selecting a private map name as a shared map, the suffixes are different.

Verification Point file ( verificationpointname .rftvp )

Each script may also contain one or more verification point files. Verification point files are not shared among scripts.

Script Definition file (scriptname.rftdef )

Each script contains a script definition file. The script definition file contains the name of the map file, script name, the names of all of the recognized objects, and other file linkage information.

Public Test dataset ( filename.rftdp ) or Private Test dataset ( scriptname.rftxdp )

You can associate a public or private test dataset with a test script. You can associate a public test dataset with one or several test scripts.

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