Functional testing
To get started in functional testing, familiarize yourself with some basic concepts and use cases. To effectively automate test cases, you can consider several approaches before you start creating the functional test scripts.
Planning functional tests
You must consider your requirements and identify the right approach to follow to automate functional testing. By automating functional testing, you can effectively use the features available in Rational® Functional Tester.- Modular functional test scripts: You can create multiple functional test scripts for a test case and reuse the scripts that apply to different test cases. By creating modular functional test scripts, you can reuse the test scripts for different test cases. By using modular test scripts, you can also associate the test scripts with multiple test cases that are created in a test management tool such as IBM® Rational® Quality Manager. In Rational® Functional Tester, you can use the Call Script option to call another functional test script.
- Recording test scripts versus manual test scripts: In Rational® Functional Tester, you can either record a functional test script against the test application or manually create a test script. If the application under test changes frequently and impacts the test-object hierarchy, you must update the test object maps to avoid errors or failures. The test object maps are created when you record the functional test scripts against the test application. In this scenario, you can create manual test scripts and use the find() methods to search for the test objects in the application and specify the action to use on them. For manual test script creation, you must be familiar with the programming language.
- Simplified test scripts versus Java test scripts: Simplified scripts are functional test scripts in the form of simple English statements that are easy to understand and edit. With the simplified script feature enabled, you can also view the corresponding Java test script in the Java script editor. When you edit the simplified script, the Java script reflects the changes in the Java script editor. You can switch to the Java script editor using the Insert Java Code Snippet or Insert Java Method features available in the simplified script editor and start working with the Java test script.