How to use Descriptive programming?

There are two ways in which descriptive programming can be used

1.      By creating properties collection object for the description.

2.      By giving the description in form of the string arguments.

1.      By creating properties collection object for the description.

To use this method you need first to create an empty description

Dim obj_Desc ‘Not necessary to declare

Set obj_Desc = Description.Create

Now we have a blank description in “obj_Desc”. Each description has 3 properties “Name”, “Value” and “Regular Expression”.

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

When you use a property name for the first time the property is added to the collection and when you use it again the property is modified. By default each property that is defined is a regular expression. Suppose if we have the following description

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt.*”

This would mean an object with html tag as INPUT and name starting with txt. Now actually that “.*” was considered as regular expression. So, if you want the property “name” not to be recognized as a regular expression then you need to set the “regularexpression” property as FALSE

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt.*”

obj_Desc(“name”).regularexpression= “txt.*”

This is how of we create a description. Now below is the way we can use it

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebEdit(obj_Desc).set “Test”

When we say .WebEdit(obj_Desc) we define one more property for our description that was not earlier defined that is it’s a text box (because QTPs WebEdit boxes map to text boxes in a web page).

If we know that we have more than 1 element with same description on the page then we must define “index” property for the that description

Consider the HTML code given below

Now the html code has two objects with same description. So distinguish between these 2 objects we will use the “index” property. Here is the description for both the object

For 1^st textbox:

      obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”

obj_Desc(“index”).value= “0”

For 2^nd textbox:

      obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”

obj_Desc(“index”).value= “1”

Consider the HTML Code given below:

We can use the same description for both the objects and still distinguish between both of them

obj_Desc(“html tag”).value= “INPUT”

obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”

When I want to refer to the textbox then I will use the inside a WebEdit object and to refer to the radio button I will use the description object with the WebRadioGroup object.

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebEdit(obj_Desc).set “Test” ‘Refers to the text box

Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebRadioGroup(obj_Desc).set “Test” ‘Refers to the radio button

But if we use WebElement object for the description then we must define the “index” property because for a webelement the current description would return two objects.

When and Why to use Descriptive programming?

Below are some of the situations when Descriptive Programming can be considered useful:

1.      The objects in the application are dynamic in nature and need special handling to identify the object. The best example would be of clicking a link which changes according to the user of the application, Ex. “Logout <>”.

2.      When object repository is getting huge due to the no. of objects being added. If the size of Object repository increases too much then it decreases the performance of QTP while recognizing a object.

3.      When you don’t want to use object repository at all. Well the first question would be why not Object repository? Consider the following scenario which would help understand why not Object repository

Scenario 1: Suppose we have a web application that has not been developed yet. Now QTP for recording the script and adding the objects to repository needs the application to be up, that would mean waiting for the application to be deployed before we can start of with making QTP scripts. But if we know the descriptions of the objects that will be created then we can still start off with the script writing for testing

Scenario 2: Suppose an application has 3 navigation buttons on each and every page. Let the buttons be “Cancel”, “Back” and “Next”. Now recording action on these buttons would add 3 objects per page in the repository. For a 10 page flow this would mean 30 objects which could have been represented just by using 3 objects. So instead of adding these 30 objects to the repository we can just write 3 descriptions for the object and use it on any page.

4.      Modification to a test case is needed but the Object repository for the same is Read only or in shared mode i.e. changes may affect other scripts as well.

5.      When you want to take action on similar type of object i.e. suppose we have 20 textboxes on the page and there names are in the form txt_1, txt_2, txt_3 and so on. Now adding all 20 the Object repository would not be a good programming approach.

What is Descriptive Programming

Whenever QTP records any action on any object of an application, it adds some description on how to recognize that object to a repository of objects called object repository. QTP cannot take action on an object until unless its object description is in the Object Repository. But descriptive programming provides a way to perform action on objects which are not in Object repository.

What is e-Commerce

What is e-commerce? 

For the purposes of this paper, e-commerce (also known as e-business) is defined as the software and business processes required to allow businesses to operate solely or primarily using digital data flows.  E-commerce is often associated with web technology and is commonly transacted via web portals, but e-commerce is much more than the provision of a web page as the customer interface.

    The creation of integrated business processes (Enterprise Resource Planning), the integration of collections of disparate software applications, each designed to facilitate a different aspect of the business (Enterprise Application Integration), the extension of software and business processes to embrace transactions with suppliers’ systems (Supply Chain Management), the need for increased security for transactions over public networks, and the potential volume demand at e-commerce sites all provide new and unique challenges to the e-commerce development community – challenges which will require novel and innovatory solutions and which will need thorough testing before they are allowed to go live.

Why is testing important in the e-commerce environment?

The first and primary reason is because e-commerce is, by its very nature, business critical.  In the third quarter of 1998, Dell’s e-commerce site exceeded $10 million in daily sales; the E*Trade site currently exceeds 52, 000 transactions per day, giving a cost of one-day failure of around $800,000; and the travel industry in Europe will be worth $2 billion by 2002, according to Datamonitor.  The immediacy of the customer, with its implied promise of rapid delivery at competitive prices, and the sheer accessibility of the web, all combine to create potentially massive demand on web sites and portals. 

The second reason is that e-commerce is a massive and growing market place but one which requires large up-front investment to enter successfully.  There are already 5.8 million web sites worldwide, 2.5 million of which have been created this year (1999).  The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that the e-commerce market will grow from over $5billion in 1998 to $1trillion in 2003.  The average cost of development of an e-commerce site is $1 million, says the Gartner Group and will increase by 25% annually over the next 2 years.

The third reason is because the history of e-commerce development has been littered with expensive failures, at least some of which could have been avoided by better testing before the site was opened to the general public.  (In e-commerce terms, ‘the site’ means the entire architecture from suppliers through back-end systems and front-end systems to the customers; it typically includes Intranet, Internet and extranet applications as well as legacy systems and third party middleware).