Automatic Web Testing Based On Watir

Bugs everywhere! As software is growing more complicated, consisting of more functions and having more relationships with each other, building a soft application without any defects seems a mission impossible, whoever the coder is. And that is why testing is brought forth.Software testing is a new industry, and few software companies have realized its importance. They often think the development is more important than testing. There is no professional department of testing, even few testing engineers. It's very common for a developer working as a tester. Testing is a tough work. Because of the little time, and few testers, some testing is not done well, so these tests are senseless. Besides, some cases can not reach by hand. Test tool become the key to solve all the problems. Using test tools can load off many works of tester and improve the efficiency.In this paper, the importance of software testing is introduced from the software engineering's point of view, and it explained the theory of software testing in detail especially stress on the theory of web testing. As popular as the web application, more and more cases developed using web, so web testing became popular in recent years. The paper explained the current situation of web testing and the defects of hand testing from which to extend the importance and necessity of test tool. There are two kinds of test tools: one is that it makes the tool working as a man to find the bugs, and the other is that it executes some cases which can not be achieved only by hand. Test tool is a weapon of testers, but it can not replace the tester. Test tool is very powerful. It has some advantages: 1) Raise the quality of testing. 2) Decrease the repeat action. 3) Make the test automatic.But some test tools are not fit for the company. Some reasons hampered the use of tools in practice. Such as depend on the tools too much, no environment and the fee charged for using tools. Besides, some requirements are needed for tester to write some test cases. It definitely makes using tools more difficult.Open source is more successful than before, it changed the development and operation in the field of software, it also changed the way of testing. Using test tool of open source can raise the efficiency and cut down the cost of testing.Watir is a good example of open source test tool. Watir stands for"Web Application Testing in Ruby". It is a test frame of open source based on ruby. It's small, flexible but powerful relative to some business tool. Watir provides some functions to recognize and operate web elements. Such as the click of hyperlinks, the selection or clear of checkboxes and radios, the selection of selects, the input of texts, the click of buttons and some operations on frame and pop window. You can recognize, operate and visit these elements, make the test automatic. If you are familiar with ruby, you can extend some applications combined with other tools. In order to tell about the simple and convenience of watir, the analysis of a piece of code was given.Another test tool is presented in this paper. It developed on watir frame in java. You can customize test case according to your requirement using this tool. It provides some molds included form test and link test. Each test included two molds in this tool. The tool makes using test tool more convenient and customizing test case easier. The design model of this tool is presented in the paper from the aspect of function. Some key points and difficult points in realizing were explained in detail, and the class diagrams were given. With the comparison of the curves, the advantages in efficiency, convenience and correct of test tool can be proved clearly, and these can not be reached by hand.As a simple open source test tool, it meets the basic requirements of web testing, and provides other interfaces to extend some extra functions, make the use more convenient, and raise the test efficient. At the same time, lower the requirement of tester. In my daily work, I have already used the tool for the development of web testing.