Write ready-to-go test cases titles with pairwise tests generation tool
TL;DR
If you put as a dataset for pairwise online tool not only pairs, but also the words in between, then you can get ready-to-go titles for checklist or your test cases:
Details of the approach
Current situation
Almost everyone uses pairwise test generation tools only as the tools for all-pairs generation. I mean users get to the tool (online or offline), enter their dataset, generate pairs, get those generated pairs and disappear.
For example in SQA Mate online pairwise test case generation tool, users enter their input dataset:
Chrome, Firefox, Safari
Windows, Linux, MacOSenter their exclude-pairs dataset:
Safari, Windows
Safari, Linuxand press “Generate pairs” button.
As a result they get the following pairs dataset:
Firefox, Windows
Chrome, Linux
Safari, MacOSProbably, then they go and write their manual or automated test cases based on those generated pairs.
What can we do better
What if we started to form our test cases titles right in the pairwise tool? It is possible, because:
- if we do not use comma separator, then parameter is considered as a single one even if it has spaces;
- single parameter participates in every pair;
And this gives us the following thing: if we ask a pairwise testing tool to write sentences for us, it will do.
Watch. We’d wanted to test, that:
Web page is displayed correctlyOk. Where?
In Firefox on Windows web page is displayed correctlyOk! Looks like parameters “browser” and “OS” are introduced, right?
In Firefox, Chrome, Safari on Windows, MacOS, Linux web page is displayed correctlyLet’s make line breaks to outline dataset from other words of the sentence:
In
Firefox, Chrome, Safari
on
Windows, MacOS, Linux
web page is displayed correctlySee? What will happen, if we put this as a dataset for pairwise testing tool
Take a look:
If you skip commas in the resulting dataset, then you get nice and complete pairwise sentences — so you could go and test with them already!
Add there exclude pairs:
Safari, Windows
Safari, Linuxand you’ll get 3 pairwise tests:
And if you get rid of commas in that resulting sentences, magic will happen:
In Firefox on Windows web page is displayed correctly
In Chrome on Linux web page is displayed correctly
In Safari on MacOS web page is displayed correctlyAnd this is a complete ready-to-go pairwise testing sentences! Not “just pairs”:
Firefox, Windows
Chrome, Linux
Safari, MacOSMuch better, right? Ignore this approach on your own peril!
