Record hints allow an application to influence the Squish event recorder while a user records a test script. Using a record hint an application can insert comments or function calls into the test script at a given time.

For this purpose Squish provides a RecordHint class which is defined in the file recordhint.h in Squish's include directory. The public API is implemented inline in this file, so the application only needs to include this file and not link against any additional library.

Let's assume we have an application which also defines a function myfunc which we have also wrapped so a test script can access this function. After the user clicks a certain button in the application we want the test script to call myfunc.

To do this, we add the following C++ code at the point where the button click is handled:

Squish::RecordHint comment( Squish::RecordHint::Comment, "Call myfunc" );
comment.send();
Squish::RecordHint callmyfunc( Squish::RecordHint::Function, "myfunc" );
callmyfunc.send();

Now when recording a script and clicking on the button, e.g. the following Python script will be generated:

def main():
    ...
    clickButton("....")
    # Call myfunc
    myfunc()

This small example shows when and how to use record hints. The recordhint.h file shows the complete available API.

Usually, Squish hooks into the AUT without requiring any special preparations. However, in some cases (like on AIX) this is not possible due to technical limitations.

For these cases, you can use the built-in hook approach. This approach requires minimal modifications of your AUT:

Example:

    #include <qapplication.h>
    #include "qtbuiltinhook.h"

    int main( int argc, char ** argv )
    {
	QApplication a( argc, argv );
	Squish::installBuiltinHook();
	...
	return a.exec();
    }

This is all the preparation you need to enable your program for testing on platforms where the preloading mechanism is not available. It does not hurt if you leave in this code on other platforms as well -- in this case, the function recognizes that nothing needs to be done.

The function Squish::installBuiltinHook() is a lightweight function that is fairly safe to leave in the final program.