Research On GUI Automated Test Technology

The automated test technology is a software test approach that tests software automatically by test scripting(s). Especially facing to software with many Graphic User Interfaces(GUIs) and the growing complexity of GUIs, people hope to develop test efficiency by automated test case generation. Therefore, it is very meaningful to research on automated GUI test technology.Our research is supported by a national 863 research project - "Research on Automated Test Technology for 3-Dimensions CAD Systems and System Implementation"(Project No: 2002AA411510). This paper focuses research on automated GUI test technology. The main work is as the following:(1) Based on existing GUI test technology, we propose an automated GUI test method based GUI components. First, divide GUI event flow into independent GUI component with limited states and events of GUI, define GUI component with formal methods, establish restrictions among GUI components and derive many new GUI components from the restricitons. Second, build test coverage criteria to test factors of GUI component structure figure. Then, test datas can be produced from test data generated by equivalence partitioning, boundry value analyzing, error seeding and cause-effect graphing. Finally, the test result is juded from interface test states and expected staed. Experimental results show the automated GUI test method based on GUI component can improve test efficiency, and can expose error effectively.(2) For the automated GUI test approach based on GUI componet with the test scripting technology, we define a test scripting language -- GUIScript(GUI test scripting language), which is written in C-like languange. The GUIScript is a keyword-driven scripting technology, which has the same syntax with C++ and the same virtues with JAVAScript. The GUIScript encapsulates GUI components to classes and defines the classes'interface function(s). The testing can be executed automatically with GUIScript scripts.(3) Based on the above achievements, we developed an auotomated GUI test tool. The tool is implemented based on the GUI-component test method and the GUIScript technology. It can test GUI software automatically by executing GUIScript scripts. The automated GUI test tool has been applied to the test process of CAD software– TiGems, and it improves test efficiency.