FAQs for RRAFS

Ans: <Please send your company name for counting number of companies that use RRAFS. Sending names is optional though.This is just for counting purpose.>

- SAS

Que 8: Which tools and technologies are associated with RRAFS ?

Ans: Rational Robot v2001 and later

STAF (optional)

SAFS (optional)

RationalXDE Tester (optional)

Java tools and utilities (optional)

Que 9: What other tools are provided to assist automation using RRAFS ?

Ans: Other tools available are – ProcessContainer, TestGenerator, SQAPublisher, Publish

Que 10: What is process container and why and how to use it ?

Ans: ProcessContainer is a small application (script) that allows capturing your application’s front end windows and associated component information. In turn it will prepare an Application Map that represents the window being captured.

Que 11: What is difference between Classic Robot and XDE TEster ?

Ans: XDE Tester tests ONLY Web and Java apps.

Classic Robot tests Web, Java , C/C++, VB, COM and several other environments.

Classic Robot ONLY runs on Windows. XDE Tester runs on Windows and Linux.

Que 12: Why would I want to use both Robot *and* XDE Tester ?
Ans: XDE Tester allows testing of Web and Java applications. If an application has controls that are not recognized by Robot, then one has to use XDE Tester. In such case, the Robot invokes XDE Tester to test features that can be tested only through XDE Tester. RRAFS allows us to take advantage of the strengths in each tool instead of having to pick one tool, or the other.

Que 13: What is Test Generator and why and how to use it ?

Ans: The TestGenerator assists the tester in the development of SAFS compatible test tables. It is, essentially, a test development IDE for testers. It uses Excel to store project assets and tables. These test tables can then be exported for execution by RRAFS.

Que 14: Which newsgroups are associated with it ?

Ans: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=10782

Que 15: Where can I find additional help and a reference on RRAFS ?

Ans: http://safsdev.sourceforge.net/sqabasic2000/RRAFSReference.htm

Que 16: How is RRAFS different than automation tools like Robot, WinRunner, and Silk?

Ans: This automation framework is independent of the underlying tool that is being used for example – Robot, WinRunner or SilkTest.

The framework provides functionality in terms of functions or actions . For example – GUIExist checks whether a GUI component exists or not. The testcases--your scripts--are tool-independent. The same test can be executed by Robot *or* XDE Tester or any compatible SAFS engine.

Que 17: What type of applications can be tested with RRAFS ?

Ans:

Java

Web

.NET

COM ? (with enhancements)

C/C++/C#

Oracle ? (with enhancements)

Delphi ? (with enhancements)

PeopleSoft ? (with enhancements)

Que 18: How do I decide whether I can automate an application using RRAFS ?

Ans: One can think RRAFS as a layer on top of Rational Robot which does not cost in terms of licenses. However, until the tool-independent multi-platform engines are available, one has to invest by installation and usage of Rational Robot to get benefit. User need not understand the visual basic code to implement test cases. This increases productivity many fold.

Que 19: What are the overheads of using it ?

Ans: The overheads of using is one has to install and learn usage of the functions/actions provided by RRAFS.

Que 20: Is there any version that would support Unix, Linux ?

Ans: Currently there is no version that supports Unix or Linux. Because the underlying tool being used i.e. Robot is not supported on Unix or Linux platforms. Ongoing development is working to implement one or more multi-platform engines that would support Unix and Linux.

Que 21: Where can I get information about internals of RRAFS ?
Ans: http://safsdev.sourceforge.net/sqabasic2000/RRAFS_Details_Index.htm

Que 22: I have downloaded and installed successfully RRAFS. Is there any getting started kind of document that guides thru a sample example ?

Ans: Mr. Khawaja Ahmed had written a document RRAFS_QuickStart_Guide.doc and one can go thru this document to learn on sample application. Currently, this and other user-submitted materials can be found in the file-sharing RationalUsers group at:

http://yahoogroups.com/group/RationalUsers

Que 23: Does this framework support running automation on multiple clients from a single box ?

Ans: It has no built-in distributed test management features. However, the enhanced SAFS framework available to RRAFS uses STAF; and STAF is very well suited to launching and synchronizing distributed tests. There are also various ways in which the Rational TestManager can be used to execute tests on multiple clients using TestManager as the controlling box.

Que 24: Is the code generated (cycle, suite, step tables) from one engine portable to other engines ?

Ans: The intention is "Yes". All SAFS Engines should be able to interpret and parse the same test tables. One area of concern is that the new target engine needs to support all the keywords that exist in the test being ported. Presently, not all the available engines support all the known keywords. If the new engine does not support all the keywords used in your test, then those unsupported keywords will issue "UNIMPLEMENTED COMMAND" errors. The support for missing keywords will need to be added to the new engine to have complete portability.

Que 25: How reliable is this framework as compared to other automation tools like Silk or Winrunner ?

Ans: Since this framework is associated with Rational Robot®, it cannot be directly compared with other automation tools like Silktest or WinRunner. The framework can and does often provide enhancements and workarounds on top of the underlying tools like Robot or WinRunner to make a given activity more robust than just using the tool by itself.

Que 26: What is advantage of using RRAFS over Rational Robot® ?

Ans: Being a keyword-driven framework, one does not need to program in SQABasic. Testers can develop tests without learning the underlying automation tool. The tests are easier to understand, easier to maintain, and provide maximum code reuse.

Que 27: How reliable is this framework as compared to Rational Robot ?

Ans: The framework provides standardized , tested code. It is typically much more reliable and more thoroughly tested than recorded scripts. Still, RRAFS sits on top of Rational Robot. Sometimes we can workaround problems encountered in Robot, but sometimes we cannot.

Que 28: What is the difference between RRAFS and SAFS ?

Ans: The SAFS Framework contains Java-based, vendor-independent tools and services available to all existing and future SAFS Engines. It is also the foundation for multi-platform test execution--which is currently in development. RRAFS is a specific SAFS Engine built with Rational Robot®. It can run standalone without any of the SAFS Framework tools and services, but it can also take advantage of these for added functionality.

Que 29: What language is the engine written in ?

Ans: The core of the RRAFS engine is developed using SQABasic available with Rational Robot®. It is different than Visual Basic and Word Basic. In addition, RRAFS uses Windows DLLs coded in C/C++ and COM objects coded in Visual Basic 6.0. RRAFS can also interface with and take advantage of our newer engines, tools, and services coded in Java.

Que 30: Can I do Load or Stress Testing using this framework ?

Ans: Since this tool sits on top of Rational Robot, it does not provide traditional load or stress testing. However, some people have run multiple client tests using Rational Agents on remote boxes controlled via TestManager. This can perform very limited load or stress testing.

Que 31: Are the tools ProcessContainer and TestGenerator freely available ? Where are they available ?

Ans: Yes, these tools can be downloaded and used free of charge, just like everything else we provide.

ProcessContainer captures the application GUI information and can generate application maps for web clients, java clients, or other windows clients. To use ProcessContainer, run the Robot script called “RunProcessContainer”. This may be available in your project. If "RunProcessContainer" is not an available script, you can easily make it per these <a href="ProcessContainer.htm">ProcessContainer instructions.</a>

TestGenerator guides the tester as they build Excel-based test tables for execution by any SAFS Engine . TestGenerator is a separate download available from the "safs common" package of our <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=56751">Files Download Page</a>.

Que 32: When a new version of the underlying testing tool is released, is the framework engine also upgraded ?

Ans: Since V2001 of Rational Robot, the RRAFS engine has worked with each new release without modification. Of course, we cannot guarantee that a new release of Rational Robot will not cause problems, just as any new release of Robot can break any Robot script or test. If a new release were to cause such a problem, we have every intention of fixing what Rational breaks and providing that as quickly as possible.