BluePrint: Test Suite

Introduction

This blueprint outlines the development of the automatic testing framework. This automatic testing framework will provide robust testing of the code-base and ensure proper maintenance of the code.

Whenever some changes are added in the current code, it has to be validated and tested upon with the integration with the other components of the code. So, this framework will provide this support.

With tests running on a scheduler, continuous testing can be done. This is important to Sahana, seeing the rapid movement of the code-base. Currently, Sahana has automatic test framework, whose details can be found here

Stakeholders

• Developers - With an automatic testing framework setup, it will be relatively easier for the developers to test their changes in the code.

• People who want to deploy Sahana - They would like to run the tests to ensure that the system is integrated well and ready for deployment.

• Sahana as a service - Automated testing will provide Quality Assurance to it’s clients.

• Bug Marshalls

User Stories

• Developers will run the test suite on making changes to the code to test if their code works with the integration of the system. If their changes do not break the tests, then their code is viable for merging.

• Developers may also see the test results mailed to the list to see the possible bugs introduced into the system.

• On a regular basis, the "bug marshals" review the test results sent by the CI Server and see if the reported negatives are false negatives or true negatives. If they are false negatives, they fix the tests or log a ticket on the trac for a bug in the testing code. If they are true negatives, they log a ticket on the trac for a bug in the code on which testing is done or fix the bug themselves.

• People who want to deploy will run the test suite to check the functionality of the system.

Use Case Diagram

Requirements

Functional

• Maintain the CI Server to run the tests periodically and send an aggregated report for all the templates via email.

• Run Selenium Tests in multiple templates with multiple user accounts.

• Create an abstraction for the Selenium Tests so that they are easier to read, write tests and tests are more robust.

• Extend Role Tests to run on different templates(Currently is limited to the IFRC roles for RMS)

• Run Smoke tests in multiple templates.

• Load Tests : Will measure performance of Eden given the load under both normal and anticipated peak conditions.

• Clearer Error Messages in a way that anyone can reproduce them.

• Adapt tests to meet needs of evolving CI Server(SysAdmin/ContinuousIntegration). The tests should successfully run on the CI Server both locally and remotely. As mentioned before, it should then send the results via email.

Non-functional

Interoperability

The tests should operate between multiple templates.

Standards

System Constraints

Design

Workflows

• Given that Sahana is a web-based tool, Selenium tests should be made robust, easy to use. The main idea is to have a set of functions(create, search, report, edit) which will take the tablename, labels of the field and the record data as input. The Testsuite should automatically check the type of field(option, autocomplete, text, date, datetime, etc) being used in the current template and fill the form accordingly. With this, we can create a code-template which just needs to be copied, pasted and fed in the record when creating a new Selenium test. This will ensure that writing Selenium tests are as easy as giving a test case.

• So, the workflow of the developer will include running the unit tests to see if the new changes break anything and providing a Selenium test for the newly written module, which will be run in Continuous Integration.

• The role tests currently run only on the IFRC template. The test suite should automatically generate data for multiple templates so that the role tests can be run on them as well.

• To ensure that tests(role, selenium, smoke) work across templates and do not show false negatives when run on a different template, a check has to be made if the module it is to work on is enabled/disabled. If the module is disabled, then the test should automatically deactivate and an appropriate message should be included in the test report.

• The load tests will test the amount of load Eden can take under normal and peak conditions. So, the load tests should be divided into phases, with each phase incrementally increasing the number of users and requests. Features of Tsung can be used to do this effectively.

• The CI Server should run all the test across templates on a daily basis both locally and remotely. For each test, it should include the template it is run on, test name and location. In case of failure of the test, it should include the traceback and the record details it was intended to work on also. It should send an aggregate report and a template specefic report for the bug marshalls and developers to investigate.

Technologies

• For setting up the CI Server, some of the technologies which can be used are given here - ContinuousIntegration

• For Continuous Integration, an instance of Eden can also be used which will enable Scheduling, enable subscription of notifications for test results, can also provide formatted results.

• For functional tests, currently, Selenium and Smoke Tests are used. The current Selenium tests should be made more robust and they should work across browsers. Currently, there is support for Firefox Webdriver(upto version 16) and Chrome Webdriver. We need to provide support for Safari Webdriver, Opera Webdriver and Internet Explorer Webdriver.

• The Role tests(which currently run only on the IFRC template and uses Selenium Unit Test) are to extend to run on multiple templates.

Implementation

The Seleium tests can be run on mainly IFRC template. With some changes, they can be run on the default template as well. However, they don’t work across templates.

The unit tests expect that some particular modules are enabled in the template. If they are not enabled and unit tests are run in that template, then false negatives are reported.

Current implementation of the selenium tests, smoke tests, role tests can be found here -

​https://github.com/flavour/eden/tree/master/modules/tests

Unit tests and benchmark tests can be found here -

​https://github.com/flavour/eden/tree/master/modules/unit_tests

References

Blueprint on General Ideas - BluePrintTesting

Current Implementation - QA

DeveloperGuidelinesTesting

SysAdmin/ContinuousIntegration

BluePrint