A Rundown on the Record and Playback Test
The development of software products is just not possible without the conduction of tests for the purpose of quality assurance. What would be the point of releasing software products if the consuming public would just throw complaints at these? This is precisely why there is a need for software test automation. There are actually a number of methods to implement software test automation. One of these is the playback test. But before we discuss the basics on this particular type of software test automation, it is important to understand in more depth just what software test automation is really about.
Software engineers actually make use of a number of testing methods to perform quality assurance and quality control. Automated testing involves methods that do not really require any action or intervention from humans. As the name suggests, automated testing involves the process of automation.
What happens here is that a manual testing procedure is automated. Test automation enlists the use of particular software so that the execution of tests is controlled. Aside from control being exerted on the execution of tests, the pre-conditions needed for the test would also be set up. From there, the actual outcomes of the tests would then be compared to the predicted outcomes that have been set prior to the execution of the tests themselves.
There are various test automation tools the market right now, and all of these let testers try out their codes in significantly less time. What is even greater about these tools is that they provide what is known as a record and playback feature. With this feature, testers can record whatever actions that occur and then replay them for a certain number of times, just so the codes can be tested more thoroughly. Repeated playback is done so that the testing process is carried out as many times as needed.
A file is actually created to record the various keystrokes made by the end user, and this information is coupled with timing information as well. Because there are various keystrokes made, then separate files are created accordingly. Once you have these keystrokes saved in your file, you can then use this particular file against an application, to test it out. A log file is created every time you test a file, which is then analyzed to determine if the performance of the application is correct or not. The great thing about record and playback is the fact that it makes the whole testing process a lot faster. Since you already have a recording of the testing steps, then all you have to do is repeat the whole process accordingly. This speeds up the whole testing procedure quite significantly.
Pretty easy, right? However, just like anything else in this world, there are also drawbacks that come with the method of the record and playback test. In fact, this test just would not fit quite right in the real-world setting. This is because changes to the application are actually made at regular intervals. Thus, this method would only work very well in simple settings or situations. But if you compare this method to other automation testing procedures and tools, you would definitely see how limited record and playback could be.
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