Squish tip of the week: Automate Business Rule Validation

Applications often have a set of business rules; rules that govern how an application should react based on a given set of input or actions. Or as Wikipedia defines it:

A business rule is a rule that defines or constrains some aspect of business and always resolves to either true or false. Full definition

Validate your application’s business rules using data-driven tests

Take a simple set of steps, perhaps even a Snippet of a Test Case, let’s say lines 7 – 10 in the following example:

def main():
    startApplication("AddressBookSwing.jar")
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":Address Book_JMenuBar", "File"))
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":File_JMenu", "New..."))
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":Address Book - Unnamed_JMenuBar", "Edit"))
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":Edit_JMenu", "Add..."))
    type(waitForObject(":Address Book - Add.Forename:_JTextField"), "sam")
    type(waitForObject(":Address Book - Add.Surname:_JTextField"), "smith")
    type(waitForObject(":Address Book - Add.Email:_JTextField"), "sam@smith.com")
    type(waitForObject(":Address Book - Add.Phone:_JTextField"), "123.123.1234")
    clickButton(waitForObject(":Address Book - Add.OK_JButton"))

Ask yourself (or better yet, your team):

• What are the valid input values in each of these fields?
• What values are not permitted in each of these fields?
• Do the fields have any minimum character requirements?
• Any maximum character requirements?
• What should display in the event any of these requirements are not met? And when should it display?

Given answers to the above set of questions, you can begin compiling a collection of data to validate the business rules.

Business Rules Data Table

Modify your Test Case to use the data

Use the Make Code Data Driven wizard to give yourself a jump start.

Then

1. Update the text field to use the related variable(s) and
2. Add a verification point to validate the expected result

Updated example

def main():
    startApplication("AddressBookSwing.jar")
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":Address Book_JMenuBar", "File"))
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":File_JMenu", "New..."))
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":Address Book - Unnamed_JMenuBar", "Edit"))
    activateItem(waitForObjectItem(":Edit_JMenu", "Add..."))

    for record in testData.dataset("businessRules.tsv"):
        field = testData.field(record, "field")
        input = testData.field(record, "input")
        result_details = testData.field(record, "result_details")
        comments = testData.field(record, "comments")
        textField = waitForObject(":Address Book - Add.%s:_JTextField" % field)
        textField.setText("")
        type(waitForObject(textField), input)
        waitFor("object.exists(':Address Book - Add.%s_Warning:_JLabel' % field)", 20000)
        test.compare(findObject(":Address Book - Add.%s_Warning:_JLabel" % field).text, result_details, comments)