R-16970-2014 - TESTAR (Test*): a tool for automating software testing at the Graphical User Interface (GUI) level

R-16970-2014 - TESTAR (Test*): a tool for automating software testing at the Graphical User Interface (GUI) level. Testing applications with a graphical user interface (GUI) is an important, though challenging and time consuming task. The state of the art in the industry are still capture and replay tools, which may simplify the recording and execution of input sequences, but do not support the tester in finding fault-sensitive test cases. While search-based test case generation strategies, such as evolutionary testing are well researched for various areas of testing, relatively little work has been done on applying these techniques to an entire GUI of an application. TESTAR is a technique that allows completely unattended testing of large and complex GUI-based SUTs. The tool uses the operating system¿s Accessibility API to obtain state information about the SUT. It can simulate arbitrary mouse and keyboard inputs to drive the tested system the same way as human users do. However, its speed and knowledge about the SUT, allow it to generate sequences that are hard to come up with by humans and can exercise the SUT in unexpected ways, often causing crashes. The tool is written in Java and contains in part C and C++ code to access the accessibility API of the operating system. In addition, it allows action specifications using a Prolog-like syntax, which makes it notably customizable. In summary, the benefit of applying the Rogue User technique is the completely automatic nature of the approach, which allows companies to thoroughly test even complex systems entirely unattended, thus saving valuable human resources and costs.