Briefing of Test automation

Integration Tests

These tests check how different code units work together.Although individual units may work correctly individually, integration tests ensure that they work together.End-to-end tests:These tests test the system as a whole, simulating real-world usage scenarios.They are the slowest and most complex tests..One approach to automatically generate test cases is through model-based testing that uses models of the system for test case generation, but research continues to investigate various alternatives.In some cases, a model-based approach enables non-technical users to create automated business test cases in plain English such that no programming of any kind is required to configure for multiple operating systems, browsers, and smart devices they.What to automate, when to automate, and even if automation is really needed are key decisions that the test (or development) team must make.A multi-party literature review of 52 practitioners and 26 academic sources found that five main factors to consider in test automation decisions are: 

1) The system under test (SUT). 

2) The type and amount of testing.

3) Test tools.4) human and organizational subjects

5) Crossover factors,the most common individual factors identified in the study were: need for regression testing, economic factors, and maturity of the SUT.A growing trend in software development is the use of unit testing frameworks, such as the xUnit frameworks (for example, JUnit and NUnit), which allow unit tests to be performed to determine whether various parts of the code behave as expected under various circumstances. Test cases describe the tests that need to be run on the program to verify that the program works as expected.Test automation, primarily using unit tests, is a key feature of Extreme Programming and agile software development, known as test-driven development (TDD) or test-first development. Unit tests can be written to define functionality before writing code. However, these unit tests evolve and expand as coding progresses, problems are discovered, and code is refactored.Code is considered complete only when all tests for all required functionality pass.Proponents argue that it produces software that is more reliable and less expensive than code that can be tested through manual exploratory testing.It is considered more reliable because of better code coverage, and because it runs continuously during development rather than once at the end of a waterfall development cycle. Developers discover defects as soon as they make changes, when the cost of fixing them is lowest. Finally, code refactoring is safer when using unit tests; converting the code to a simpler form with less code duplication but equivalent behavior, and when the refactored code is covered by unit tests, new defects are much less likely to be introduced many.

Some software testing tasks, such as extensive low-level interface regression testing, can be laborious and time-consuming to do manually. Also, manual methods may not always be effective at finding certain classes of defects.Test automation offers the possibility to perform these types of tests efficiently.Once automated tests are developed, they can be quickly and repeatedly run.Many times this can be a cost-effective method of regression testing for software products with long maintenance lives. Even a small patch in the application lifecycle can cause a break in existing functionality that was still valid at an earlier point in time.

While software development companies value the reusability of automated testing, this property can also be seen as a disadvantage. It leads to what's known as the "Pesticide Paradox," where a repeatedly executed script stops detecting bugs beyond its frame. In this case, manual testing may be a better investment.This ambiguity again leads to the conclusion that decisions about test automation should be made individually, keeping project requirements and idiosyncrasies in mind.Test automation tools can be expensive and are often used in conjunction with manual testing.Test automation can be made cost-effective in the long run, especially when used repeatedly in regression testing.A good candidate for test automation is the test cases for the general flow of the application, since it needs to be executed every time an enhancement is made in the application (regression testing).Test automation reduces the effort associated with manual testing.Humans are required to develop and maintain automated checks, and to review test results.

In automated testing, test engineers or software quality assurance personnel must have software coding capabilities, because test cases are written in the form of source code, and output is generated according to the assertions in it at runtime. Some test automation tools allow test authoring to be done through keywords instead of coding, which requires no programming.