Descriptive programming in QTP
Keywords:
QTP, Quick Test, Quick Test Pro, Descriptive Programming, Programming Description
Introduction:
This document demonstrates the
usage of Descriptive programming in QTP 8.20. It also discusses situations
where Descriptive programming can be used. Using Descriptive Programming
automation scripts can be created even if the application has not been
developed.
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
Object Identification:
To identify an object
during the play back of the scripts QTP stores some properties which helps QTP
to uniquely identify the object on a page. Below screen shots shows an example
Object repository:
Now to recognize a radio
button on a page QTP had added 2 properties the name of the radio button and
the html tag for it. The name the left tree view is the logical name given by
QTP for the object. This can be changed as per the convenience of the person
writing the test case. QTP only allows UNIQUE logical name under same level of
hierarchy. As we see in the snapshot the two objects in Browser->Page node
are “WebTable” and “testPath”, they cannot have the same logical name. But an
object under some other node can have the same name. Now with the current
repository that we have, we can only write operation on objects which are in
the repository. Some of the example operations are given below
Browser("Browser").Page("Page").WebRadioGroup
("testPath").Select "2"
cellData =
Browser("Browser").Page("Page").WebTable
("WebTable").GetCellData (1,1)
Browser("Example2").Page("Page").WebEdit("testPath").Set
"Test text"
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 <<UserName>>”.
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.
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
<INPUT type=”textbox” name=”txt_Name”>
<INPUT type=”textbox” name=”txt_Name”>
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 1st
textbox:
obj_Desc(“html
tag”).value= “INPUT”
obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”
obj_Desc(“index”).value= “0”
For 2nd
textbox:
obj_Desc(“html
tag”).value= “INPUT”
obj_Desc(“name”).value= “txt_Name”
obj_Desc(“index”).value= “1”
Consider
the HTML Code given below:
<INPUT type=”textbox” name=”txt_Name”>
<INPUT type=”radio” name=”txt_Name”>
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.
Hierarchy
of test description:
When
using programmatic descriptions from a specific point within a test object
hierarchy, you must continue to use programmatic descriptions
from that
point onward within the same statement. If you specify a test object by its
object repository name after other objects in the hierarchy have
been
described using programmatic descriptions, QuickTest cannot identify the
object.
For
example, you can use Browser(Desc1).Page(Desc1).Link(desc3), since it uses
programmatic descriptions throughout the entire test object hierarchy.
You can
also use Browser("Index").Page(Desc1).Link(desc3), since it uses programmatic
descriptions from a certain point in the description (starting
from the
Page object description).
However,
you cannot use Browser(Desc1).Page(Desc1).Link("Example1"), since it
uses programmatic descriptions for the Browser and Page objects but
then
attempts to use an object repository name for the Link test object (QuickTest
tries to locate the Link object based on its name, but cannot
locate it
in the repository because the parent objects were specified using programmatic
descriptions).
Getting
Child Object:
We can
use description object to get all the objects on the page that matches that
specific description. Suppose we have to check all the checkboxes present on a
web page. So we will first create an object description for a checkboxe and
then get all the checkboxes from the page
Dim obj_ChkDesc
Set obj_ChkDesc=Description.Create
obj_ChkDesc(“html tag”).value = “INPUT”
obj_ChkDesc(“type”).value = “checkbox”
Dim allCheckboxes, singleCheckBox
Set allCheckboxes =
Browse(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).ChildObjects(obj_ChkDesc)
For each singleCheckBox in allCheckboxes
singleCheckBox.Set
“ON”
Next
The above
code will check all the check boxes present on the page. To get all the child
objects we need to specify an object description i.e. we can’t use the string
arguments that will be discussed later in the 2nd way of using the programming
description.
Possible
Operation on Description Object
Consider
the below code for all the solutions
Dim obj_ChkDesc
Set obj_ChkDesc=Description.Create
obj_ChkDesc(“html tag”).value = “INPUT”
obj_ChkDesc(“type”).value = “checkbox”
Q: How to
get the no. of description defined in a collection
A: obj_ChkDesc.Count ‘Will
return 2 in our case
Q: How to
remove a description from the collection
A: obj_ChkDesc.remove “html tag” ‘would delete the html tag property from the collection
Q: How do
I check if property exists or not in the collection?
A: The
answer is that it’s not possible. Because whenever we try to access a property
which is not defined its automatically added to the collection. The only way to determine is to check its value that
is use a if statement “if obj_ChkDesc(“html tag”).value = empty then”.
Q: How to
browse through all the properties of a properties collection?
A: Two
ways
1st:
For
each desc in obj_ChkDesc
Name=desc.Name
Value=desc.Value
RE
= desc.regularexpression
Next
2nd:
For
i=0 to obj_ChkDesc.count - 1
Name=
obj_ChkDesc(i).Name
Value=
obj_ChkDesc(i).Value
RE
= obj_ChkDesc(i).regularexpression
Next
2.
By giving the description in form of the
string arguments.
You can
describe an object directly in a statement by specifying property:=value pairs
describing the object instead of specifying an object’s
name. The
general syntax is:
TestObject("PropertyName1:=PropertyValue1",
"..." , "PropertyNameX:=PropertyValueX")
TestObject—the
test object class could be WebEdit, WebRadioGroup etc….
PropertyName:=PropertyValue—the
test object property and its value. Each property:=value pair should be
separated by commas and quotation
marks. Note
that you can enter a variable name as the property value if you want to find an
object based on property values you retrieve during a run session.
Consider
the HTML Code given below:
<INPUT type=”textbox” name=”txt_Name”>
<INPUT type=”radio” name=”txt_Name”>
Now to
refer to the textbox the statement would be as given below
Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebEdit(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html
tag:=INPUT”).set “Test”
And to
refer to the radio button the statement would be as given below
Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebRadioGroup(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html
tag:=INPUT”).set “Test”
If we
refer to them as a web element then we will have to distinguish between the 2
using the index property
Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebElement(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html
tag:=INPUT”,”Index:=0”).set “Test” ‘ Refers to
the textbox
Browser(“Browser”).Page(“Page”).WebElement(“Name:=txt_Name”,”html
tag:=INPUT”,”Index:=1”).set “Test” ‘ Refers to
the radio button
Reference:
1.
“Mercury QuickTest Professional, User’s Guide, Version
8.0.1”
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