Test script: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:38, 28 June 2010

Revision as of 10:01, 27 July 2010

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There are various means for executing test scripts.

* [[Black boxManual testing|Manually]]. These are more commonly called [[test case]]s.

* [[Automated testing]]

** Short program written in a programming language used to test part of the functionality of a software system. Test scripts written as a short program can either be written using a special automated functional GUI test tool (such as [[HP QuickTest Professional]], [[SilkTest|Borland SilkTest]], and [[Rational Software|Rational Robot]], look at the [[list of GUI testing tools]] ) or in a well-known [[programming language]] (such as [[C++]], [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]], [[Tcl]], [[Expect]], [[Java (programming language)|Java]], [[PHP]], [[Perl]], [[Windows Powershell|Powershell]], [[Python (programming language)|Python]], or [[Ruby programming language|Ruby]]).

** Extensively parameterized short programs a.k.a. [[Data-driven testing]]

** Reusable steps created in a table a.k.a. [[Keyword-driven testing|keyword-driven -]] or [[table-driven testing]].

These last two types are also done in manual testing.

The major advantage of ''Automatedautomated testing'' is that tests may be executed continuously without the need for a human intervention. Another advantage over [[Manual''manual testing]]'' in that it is easily repeatable,faster and thuseasily isrepeatable. favouredThus, when doing [[regression testing]]. Itit is worth considering automating tests if they are to be executed several times, for example as part of [[regression testing]].

Disadvantages of automated testing are that automated tests arecan often— like any piece of software — be poorly written or simply break during playback. They also can only examine what they have been programmed to examine. Since most systems are designed with human interaction in mind, it is good practice that a human tests the system at some point. Automated tests can only examine what they have been programmed to examine. A trained manual tester can notice that the system under test is misbehaving without being prompted or directed. Therefore, when used in regression testing, manual testers can find new bugs while ensuring that old bugs do not reappear while an automated test can only ensure the latter. That is why a mixed testing with automated and manual testing can give very good results, automating what needs to be tested often and can be easily checked by a machine, and using manual testing to do [[test design]] to add them to the automated tests suite and to do [[exploratory testing]].

One shouldn't fall into the trap of spending more time automating a test than it would take to simply execute it manually, unless it is planned to be executed several times.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Test Script}}

[[Category:Software testing]]

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