Automate web app testing with SAHI - CIOL Tips and Tricks

Automate web app testing with SAHI

In a typical testing environment, a software tester has to fill the information in a web application or forms manually, for testing. SAHI saves time by automating this task

Shumpy Saini

Monday, June 27, 2011

BANGALORE, INDIA: Testing is a crucial part of any software development life cycle regardless of the methodology followed.

A software defect can cost a company millions of dollars, if not detected at the right time. However, the cost of detecting and correcting the error at the right time and phase is much cheaper. There are different tools available that help automate the testing process and eliminate the repetitive work for testers.

SAHI is one such tool which is a testing framework designed specially for web applications. SAHI records and playbacks scripts which help software testers who want to record and play the test. He can then run those test cases without having to manually conduct the constituent steps again and again thereby eliminating repetitive work.

For developers, it also has an API categorized in three types. First is Browser Accessor API, which helps in accessing DOM elements in simple ways, for instance, _label. The second is Browser Action API which is responsible for actions like click, while the third is miscellaneous API.

SAHI is based on Java, so any browser or operating system which supports Java or JavaScript, which most of them do, can support SAHI.

Getting started

You can download SAHI from http://sourceforge.net/projects/sahi/files/. Installation is simple and easy. Once installed, you may need to change the proxy settings of the browser that you shall be using, to use proxy settings of SAHI. To demonstrate how SAHI can be used to record and then create tests, we used Web forms. Web applications contain forms, and it becomes tiresome to fill these forms again and again while testing. We created a web form PCQTest and generated some test cases using SAHI. Once you open SAHI, you will also get a sample application to check its working.