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 dont 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(html tag).value= INPUT 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(html tag).value= INPUT 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 its 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> <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(html tag).value= INPUT obj_Desc(name).value= txt_Name obj_Desc(index).value= 0 For 2nd textbox: obj_Desc(html tag).value= INPUT obj_Desc(name).value= txt_Name obj_Desc(index).value= 1 Consider the HTML Code given below: <INPUT type=textbox name=txt_Name>

<INPUT type=radio name=txt_Name> We can use the same description for both the objects and still distinguish between both of them obj_Desc(html tag).value= INPUT obj_Desc(name).value= txt_Name 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 cant 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 its 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 2 : 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.
nd

You can describe an object directly in a statement by specifying property:=value pairs describing the object instead of specifying an objects name. The general syntax is: TestObject("PropertyName1:=PropertyValue1", "PropertyNameX:=PropertyValueX") "..." ,

TestObjectthe test object class could be WebEdit, WebRadioGroup etc. PropertyName:=PropertyValuethe 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=textbox name=txt_Name> <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, Users 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 lets 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 Uses less memory as strings are used

Object Description 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 didnt 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. Lets 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 didnt 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 Lets 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 Set oDesc = Description.Create

oDesc("text").Value = "Logout \(Tarun\)" Browser("miccclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page").Link(oDesc) .Click Method 3 Set oDesc = Description.Create oDesc("text").Value = "Logout (Tarun)" 'Do not treat the value as regular expression. oDesc("text").RegularExpression = False Browser("miccclass:=Browser").Page("micclass:=Page").Link(oDesc) .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 Set oDesc = Description.Create 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 Set oDesc = Description.Create 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" Dont 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 Set oDesc = Description.Create oDesc("Class Name").Value = "Browser" oDesc("title").Value = "My title" 'Below is the right way

Set oDesc = Description.Create 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