descriptive programming in qtp

Descriptive programming in QTP

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Keywords:

QTP, Quick Test, Quick Test Pro, Descriptive Programming, Programming Description

Introduction:

This document demonstrates the usage of Descriptive programming in QTP. 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(―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(―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‖>


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(―name‖).value= ―txt_Name‖

obj_Desc(―index‖).value= ―0‖

For 2nd

textbox:



obj_Desc(―index‖).value= ―1‖

Consider the HTML Code given below:


<INPUT type=‖radio‖ name=‖txt_Name‖>

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

of them



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=‖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‖

DP Part 2 - Converting OR Based scripts to DP

This article discusses how we can convert an Object repository based script to DP based script. For this we will do a

simple recording of entering some text on Google.com search text box and clicking the Google search button

The QTP generated script would look something like below

SystemUtil.Run "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE"

Browser("Browser").Page("Page").Sync

Browser("Browser").Navigate "http://www.google.com"

Browser("Browser").Page("Google").WebEdit("q").Set "KnowledgeInbox"

Browser("Browser").Page("Google").WebButton("Google Search").Click

All the names used between "" are logical name of the objects in the Object Repository ("Browser", "Page",

"Google", "q", "Google Search") as shown in below image

Now let’s look the below statement and try and convert it to DP

Browser("Browser").Page("Google").WebButton("Google Search").Click

Converting WebButton("Google Search")

The Google Search object present in the OR has following properties

type = submit

name = Google Search

html tag = INPUT

Now to conver the WebButton("Google Search") to its DP counterpart we can use two different methods

Method 1 – Using String Description

In this we use string parameters to specify the object properties

Browser("Browser").Page("Google").WebButton("type:=Submit", _

"name:=Google Search", "html tag:=INPUT").Click

Method 2 – Using Object Description

In this we first create a description of the object and then use it in the statement

Set oGoogleSearch = Descrition.Create

oGoogleSearch("type").Value = "Submit"

oGoogleSearch("name").Value = "Google Search"

oGoogleSearch("html tag").Value = "INPUT"

Browser("Browser").Page("Google").WebButton(oGoogleSearch).Click

Which method of DP to choose?

The later articles of this DP Part X series would be discussing in details when and where to use for which method.

For now just understand that both methods have their own advantage and disadvantages

Few difference IMO are listed below

String Description Object Description

Uses less memory as strings are used Requires more memory as objects are created. Object creation is as such

a overhead

Increases statement length in case more than one

property is to be used

Increase lines of code due to object creation overhead and property

assignment

Preferred when property value have regular expression characters which

needs to be treated literally

(explained in one of the later articles)

DP Converted script

SystemUtil.Run "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE"

Browser("micclass:=Browser").Page("Page").Sync

Browser("micclass:=Browser").Navigate "http://www.google.com"

Browser("micclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page").WebEdit("name:=q").Set _

"KnowledgeInbox"

Browser("micclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page") _

.WebButton("type:=Submit", "name:=Google Search", "html

tag:=A").Click

Note: We will discuss more in details about micclass used above in later articles

DP Dummy Properties

In our Last DP Part 1 article we saw how to convert an OR based script into a DP based script. But what we didn’t

discuss was the micclass property we used for the Browser. This article will go over various aspects of properties

and introduce some terms that I use for DP

micclass

micclass represent the type of QTP test object. Let’s take a look at below code

'Displays page

MsgBox Browser("Browser").GetTOProperty("micclass")

'Displays Page

MsgBox Browser("Browser").Page("Google").GetTOProperty("micclass")

To generalize we can say micclass of a QTP Test object is always the object keyword name we use. So

WebXXX("YYY") will have micclass as WebXXX

Dummy Properties

When in DP Part 1 article we converted the Browser statement we use

Browser("micclass:=Browser").Navigate

"http://www.onestopsoftwaretesting.com/"

Now I call this micclass:=Browser a dummy property because as soon as I say Browser("XXX") it already implies

that the micclass of the object is Browser. So why did we use micclass? Reason being that the Browser object in the

object Repository didn’t had properties define as we had only one browser opened at time of replay. So to represent

a unique/single instance object in DP we cannot use something like below

'Below is an invalid statement

Browser("").Navigate "http://www.onestopsoftwaretesting.com/"

'Below is an invalid statement

Browser().Navigate "http://www.onestopsoftwaretesting.com/"

We need to specify atleast one property in case of DP. So we use a dummy property micclass as the convention

Browser("micclass:=Browser").Navigate

"http://www.onestopsoftwaretesting.com/"

GENERAL ISSUES

This article would go over some general issues people face while using Descriptive

Programming (DP) in QTP.

Using strings with Pattern

Let’s assume we want to click a link "Logout (Tarun)" on my web page. Two possible methods

that can be used are

Method 1

Browser("miccclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page"). _

Link("text:=Logout (Tarun)").Click

Method 2

Set oDesc = Description.Create

oDesc("text").Value = "Logout (Tarun)"

Browser("miccclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page").Link(oDesc)

.Click

Now both the above methods will fail giving below mentioned error

Cannot identify the object "[ Link ]" (of class Link). Verify that this object's properties match an

object currently displayed in your application.

Looking through the naked eyes on the web page the link does exist indeed

So what went wrong? The problem was with the characters "(" and ")" present in the text of the

link we used. By default QTP treats all DP properties as regular expression (r.e.) patterns and

"(xxx)" is considered as a group of patter xxx. The text "Logout (Tarun)" when treated as a r.e.

gets a literal meaning of "Logout Tarun", and since there is no such link on the web page QTP

throws an error. To avoid such situations we need to escape the regular expression characters

using the escape character "\". Now we have three different solutions to correct the problem

Method 1

Browser("miccclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page"). _

Link("text:=Logout \(Tarun\)").Click

Method 2


oDesc("text").Value = "Logout \(Tarun\)"


.Click

Method 3


oDesc("text").Value = "Logout (Tarun)"

'Do not treat the value as regular expression.

oDesc("text").RegularExpression = False


.Click

IMO Method 3 should be preferred for a neater coding as we are using the actual text of the link.

Overpopulated description while identifying objects

An overpopulated description does not help in recognizing the object. We should use minimum

no. of properties which are stable enough to recognize the object on every single run. Consider

the below overpopulated description


oDesc("html tag").Value = "TABLE"

oDesc("micclass").Value = "WebTable"

oDesc("innertext").Value = "abcde"

oDesc("outertext").Value = "abcde"

oDesc("innerhtml").Value = "<TR><TD>abcde</TD></TR>"

oDesc("outerhtml").Value =

"<TABLE><TR><TD>abcde</TD></TR><TABLE>"

oDesc("rows").Value = 1

oDesc("cols").Value = 1

Consider the following advices while create such a description

rows and cols are dynamic properties which might change if the table gets updated. These

properties should be avoided

Only one of the properties from innertext, outertext, outerhtml and innerhtml should be

used

outerhtml and innerhtml properties should be avoided as they contains various tags and

difficult to express

When using Browser().Page().WebTable(oDesc) we can skip specifying the micclass and

html tag properties also because as soon as we enclose oDesc with the WebTable() test

object these two properties are mostly implied.

Considering the above points we can reduce our description to just


oDesc("outertext").Value = "abcde"

Underpopulated description while using ChildObjects

Though we reduced the no. of properties in the description object when identified a table in the

last section but while using ChildObjects method we should make sure the following

Maximum description properties should be used to reduce the final result set. Though we

should still follow the advices specified in earlier section of overpopulated descriptions

except the last one (Where we ignore micclass and HTML tag).

When using ChildObjects to find WebElements, "html tag" should always be provided to

avoid errors.

Property names used in description should be as the same case provided in the QTP help

file. IMO changing the case sometimes causes general run error during script run.

Though there is no documentation proving that description names are case sensitive

Using "Class Name" instead of "micclass"

Don’t know why by Mercury/HP preferred to show micclass as "Class Name" in the object spy.

This misleads many DP user to create a description with non-existent property class name

'Below is the wrong way

Browser("Class Name:=Browser")

'Below is the right way

Browser("micclass:=Browser")

'Below is the wrong way


oDesc("Class Name").Value = "Browser"

oDesc("title").Value = "My title"

'Below is the right way


oDesc("micclass").Value = "Browser"

oDesc("title").Value = "My title"

These are few general issues that people face.

Import Database in Datatable

Dim con,rs

Set con=createobject("adodb.connection")

Set rs=createobject("adodb.recordset")

con.provider="microsoft.jet.oledb.4.0"

con.open"C:\Program Files\Mercury Interactive\QuickTest

Professional\samples\flight\app\flight32.mdb"

rs.open"select*from orders",con

datatable.GetSheet(1).addparameter"Customer_name",""

datatable.GetSheet(1).addparameter"Order_number",""

datatable.GetSheet(1).addparameter"Flight_number",""

row=1

Do While Not rs.EOF

datatable.SetCurrentRow(row)

datatable.Value (1,1)=rs.fields("Customer_name")

datatable.Value(2,1)=rs.fields("Order_number")

datatable.Value(3,1)=rs.fields("Flight_number")

row=row+1

rs.movenext

Loop

descriptive programming in qtp

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