I am new to testing, when doing some research these last few days i found 2 tools that enable testing a web application, here is what i understand so far:
Selenium provides a way to manipulate the browser, so in other terms it enables simulating user interaction on a webPage, we can write tests using PhpUnit-Selenium extension for example and it will make it possible to test our application as a real user would, after that those tests need to run on different browsers...
For TestSwarm i need to write my tests using tools such as (Qunit, Jasmine...) that are mainly focused on unit testing (not user interaction ...) and use TestSwarm server to push those tests to available browsers to run them (i think this is automatic so no need for a user to manually run theses tests)
My conclusion is that Selenium and TestSwarm are somewhat complementary as Selenium enables testing user interaction overall, and TestSwarm simplifies testing javascript cross Browser.
Am i getting this right?
I think you are on the right track, here is an excerpt from https://github.com/jquery/testswarm/issues/258
Okay, so you're using WebDriver and your test suite is a set of instructions (in what language do you have it stored now?) for the browser to execute (go to page X, click button Y, etc.).
Those are not unit tests but integration tests. They require bindings with the browser and/or the ability to execute code on the target computer. They can't be executed from within the browser (in that if I visit the url of your test suite in my browser, nothing happens as the driver instructions need to be run from outside the browser or from a plugin).
TestSwarm is not designed for these kind of integration tests, but for unit tests. A very different method that simply can't be performed by TestSwarm. Also, you wouldn't need any of TestSwarm's features for this and you'd miss things you need instead (like actual browsers and the ability to control them and extract the results). Where those browsers come from there usually is something like TestSwarm close by.
I'd recommend looking into SauceLabs and Jenkins (either self-hosted or perhaps a cloud based solution like CloudBees).
Check out:
• http://sauceio.com/index.php/2012/12/getting-the-most-out-of-selenium-with-cloudbees-and-sauce-labs/
• https://saucelabs.com/jenkins/1
• http://www.cloudbees.com/platform-service-saucelabsondemand.cb
Related
I am getting ready to start a new automation project and have done some reading on Cypress as a Selenium alternative. Given that Cypress apparently runs directly in the browser as opposed to Selenium's approach, is it difficult to perform test steps with Cypress tests that fall outside the browser such as communicating with a data store, interacting with services and interacting with product infrastructure such as remote file systems? With my limited exposure to Cypress, I have only seen browser tests so I was hoping someone could shed some light on this.
When it comes to automated testing for web applications, there are two main contenders: Selenium and Cypress. Both have their pros and cons, but which one is the best?
Selenium has been around for much longer than Cypress and is therefore more widely used. It is also more flexible, allowing for tests to be written in a variety of programming languages. However, Selenium can be slow and unreliable, and it is not as easy to use as Cypress.
Cypress, on the other hand, is a newer tool that is gaining popularity due to its simplicity and reliability. Cypress tests are written in JavaScript, making it easier for front-end developers to get started with automated testing. Cypress is also faster than Selenium and can run tests in parallel, making it more efficient.
So, which one should you use? It depends on your needs. If you need a more flexible tool that can be used with different programming languages, Selenium is a good choice. However, if you want a tool that is easier to use and more reliable, Cypress is the better option.
If you need access to things outside the browser, I would go with selenium. This is what I currently do, I have a webdriver wrapper which has "plugins" loaded so that I can make db statements, query the webserver and additionally issue selenium commands to the browser.
If you're looking for just test 100% within the browser, then cypress may be the way to go.
Alternatively, you could use selenium for workflow tests and cypress or even qunitjs for intra-browser unit tests.
In the app I work on, I actually ship a page which contains a qunit page with all of the in-browser tests. Then in a selenium test, in addition to the rest of the workflow, I browser to the qunit page and report on their status as well.
I try to find a service which provides a functionality that allow me to create manual tests autmation for web-based applications in simple way with visual constructor without any coding, so it could be
simple in use without any coding on selenium or another framework tool
has option to set testing in schedule mode via the web interface to perform regression testing
has ID's validation and shows possible inconsistencies
The main point is reproduce manual tester's work without using automation scripts and do it in simple way in order to a beginner will be able to work with it.
So could anyone describe his own experience ?
There are two main options I would consider
to find a service which provides a functionality that allow me to create manual tests autmation for web-based applications in simple way
First one is BrowserStack and you can record your Selenium tests using the Selenium IDE extension for FireFox. It can export the recorded steps into your favorite language (C#, Python, ect). You can execute these recorded scripts on BrowserStack by pointing the hub URL to Browserstack's Selenium hub ‘http://hub.browserstack.com/wd/hub’ along with your username and Automate key. Your 'username' and 'automate key' can be found at Account --> Automate1, after you have logged in to your account.
I would suggest, you refer to the comprehensive documentation on BrowserStack Automate. It takes you step-by-step through the product and all its features. You can select the language you are using and get started with BrowserStack Automate. If you have any more questions, feel free to email at support#browserstack.com. They will be happy to help you out.
Second option is SauceLabs and the Selenium Builder. This is the docs that will guide you. Further more you have CI integrations for Jenkins and Bamboo.
You can use Selenium IDE to create your automated tests. With this Firefox plugin, you can record a test in your browser.
Once you're done recording, you can export the test and upload it to TestingBot. There you can specify the browsers you want to run the test on. TestingBot will then run your test across all the browsers you specified.
I have a project that requires automating a process on a website (login, click buttons, make decisions, etc.).
Ordinarily I would use something like curl to do the automation and not worry about the UI at all, however this site uses ASPX and redirects and is just a mess, so I need to write something like a selenium test to do it.
A selenium seems like a bit of a hack though, so I was wondering if there is any alternative or tool that may be better than selenium at walking the dom and "clicking" elements?
Guidance or examples appreciated.
A non programtic way would be to use Selenium IDE. Basically you record the events via a Firefox extension and can replay easily. I understand this is a non automating way as it requires a manual playback.
However one element that I really like is that I can use this extension to record my events and then generate scripts to automate playback via Selenium Remote Control drivers.
Selenium IDE is an integrated development environment for Selenium
scripts. It is implemented as a Firefox extension, and allows you to
record, edit, and debug tests. Selenium IDE includes the entire
Selenium Core, allowing you to easily and quickly record and play back
tests in the actual environment that they will run in.
Yes I know you think selenium is a hack but it is rather pretty good!
What's the pro's and cons for both and why should I use either of them for functional testing?
Regards,
Jonas
Selenium is for integration testing, It will test how your web application behaves in an actual browser. This can find things that HTTPUnit cannot, e.g. browser compatibility of css and JavaScript.
HTTPUnit tests web applications by directly calling the web service and manipulating the response. This is a functional test framework as it tests what your web app does, not how it behaves across different platforms.
One advantage of HTTPUnit is that it is much quicker than Selenium. Personally I would (and do) use both. HTTPUnit for complete functional testing and Selenium for selective (not complete) integration testing to check browser compatibility.
HttpUnit is very simple, extremely easy to use, and requires very little to get up and running. It's a good place to start for simple tests, however it will require more coding to create complex tests.
Selenium is more than just a library, like HttpUnit. It equips you better for more advanced, stateful tests.
Selenium will use your browser to automate tests
- Selenium http://seleniumhq.org/
httpunit goes from the html specification and simulates a standards conformant browser
- httpunit http://httpunit.sourceforge.net/
Selenium is more specific and will let you use browser specific behaviour and not limit the application under test.
With httpunit the limits are set by what httpunit supports which is far less than most browser do. E.g. the javascript capabilities are reduced to a very small set. On the other hand if your app passes httpunit tests it will probably run on quite a few browsers and environments.
So if you are interested in supporting a mininimal common set of features httpunit might be for you.
Hi, I want to get into test automation, and the two tools I found during my first web search are Selenium and Jmeter.
Which one do you think is the first to have a look at? Or do I need both tools as they're totally different?
What I would need is the possibility to do Clientside-Certificate-Authentication, filling forms with different Information, and checking result pages.
Apache JMeter is definitely tool for performance testing and load/stress tests. But you can use it also for functional tests as well (in your example: fill form ->check results but with checking if results are as expected - but better don't do functional testing with him)
For functional testing on the other hand there are Selenium and also Canoo web test.
So final answer will be to combine those two. (I was using JMeter for performance tests and canoo web test for functional testing, but I guess that Selenium is much better choice now)
Use Selenium for your functional tests
Use JMeter for stress tests, and measure performance
In both cases you can record a session, so you can start your Selenium or JMeter engine, do something in your browser and then stop recording. After that you can use Selenium or JMeter to run the session recorded again.
Selenium tests browser fields and buttons. In Selenium you can fill a input field and click a button, wait for the page load and then inspect the page.
Jmeter could be used for testing user-browser GET and POST communications. In Jmeter you can request an URL and post some parameters like the browser do and then inspect the page response.
PROS and CONS:
Selenium is good if you want to test javascript page functionalities.
Selenium is good if you want to have your test cases written in Java, Javascript, Python or simple html text files. Selenium can format your test cases in many programming languages. JMeter always uses an XML format for store test cases.
JMeter is good if you don't want to deal with browser versions. JMeter works in all browsers. Selenium has a wide list of supported browsers, but will always have browser requirements.
JMeter is good if you want to also record HTTP, SOAP and RESTFul protocols. JMeter can be used for record and test communications between servers. JMeter doesn't need a browser to run, Selenium does.
JMeter can run SQL queries, bash scripts, Java classes, ... from JMeter test. By the other hand, Selenium tests can be embedded in Java, Python, Javascript, ... programs.
Both supports xpath, html inspection, css inspection, ...
as mentioned in above replies, Selenium is a tool for testing functionality. Usually its described as a tool for automated testing, while on other hand JMeter is a tool used for performance testing.
I would suggest to start off with Selenium, since the most important aspect of any web application is that it's working correctly. Try to create the basic suite of couple of tests, with the most important automated tests that verify some functionality. Once you have the base automated testing knowledge at least, I would move on to JMeter and performance testing.
In my personal experience, performance testing requires much more knowledge about the system being tested than automated testing. Both JMeter and Selenium should not be complex to learn, but for performance testing you need to more about web application tested.