How do you prevent bugs in your test automation scripts?
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Test automation scripts are essential for ensuring the quality and reliability of software products. However, they can also introduce bugs that affect the test results, the performance, or the maintainability of the scripts. How can you prevent bugs in your test automation scripts and make them more robust and reliable? Here are some tips and best practices to follow.
One of the most common sources of bugs in test automation scripts is the lack of a consistent coding style. Different naming conventions, indentation, spacing, comments, and formatting can make the code hard to read, understand, and debug. To avoid this, you should follow a coding style guide that defines the rules and standards for writing and formatting your code. You should also use tools like code linters, formatters, and editors that can help you enforce and apply the coding style automatically.
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Chitra Vyas
IT QA Automation Manager
Make sure we can cover as much as Negative and Positive scenarios for automation code coverage in our automation scripts, that way we can prevent bugs in our test.
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M. Farooq Jawaid
Seasoned IT Supervisor (SQA) | Scrum Master | Business Analyst | QA Analyst | Infrastructure Engineer
First, make sure test cases are well-defined and cover a variety of scenarios. Secondly, perform regular code reviews to catch any issues early on. Thirdly, establish a robust framework and maintain a consistent coding style. Lastly, always update scripts as the application evolves to ensure compatibility.
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Another way to prevent bugs in your test automation scripts is to apply design principles and patterns that can improve the structure, modularity, reusability, and readability of your code. For example, you can use the page object pattern to separate the test logic from the web elements, or the data-driven testing pattern to separate the test data from the test cases. You can also use design principles like DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself), KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and SOLID (Single Responsibility, Open-Closed, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation, and Dependency Inversion) to avoid code duplication, complexity, and coupling.
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Niranjan Limbachiya
CEO @ KiwiQA Services | Core Testing, Digital Assurance, Consulting
To prevent bugs in test automation scripts, applying design principles and patterns is essential. By following a structured and organized approach, such as the Page Object Model (POM) or the Screenplay Pattern, scripts become more robust and maintainable. Additionally, adhering to coding standards, using descriptive naming conventions, and implementing error handling mechanisms helps identify and rectify issues early in the development process. Regular code reviews, version control, and comprehensive testing further enhance script reliability. Incorporating these practices minimizes bugs, promotes script stability, and ensures efficient test automation that contributes to a more dependable testing process.
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Oleksandr Maliarenko
Senior Quality Assurance Automation Engineer
DRY, KISS, OOP and SOLID should be the backbone of our code. Everything else come from those pillars of programming. Then just divide and conquer.
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Even if you follow a coding style and design principles, you may still introduce bugs in your test automation scripts due to human errors, typos, or logic flaws. To catch these bugs early, you should write unit tests for your test automation scripts that can verify the functionality, performance, and reliability of your code. You should also use a code review process that can help you check the quality, style, and accuracy of your code with other developers or testers. These practices can help you identify and fix bugs before they affect your test results or your test automation framework.
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Raymond Chandra
Academy Trainer at FDM Group | Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) | Registered Early Childhood Educator (RECE) in Ontario, Canada
Unit tests and code reviews are definitely necessary to prevent any bugs from occurring in the later stage of testing such as API Testing and UI Testing according to the Test Pyramid. Tools to do Unit Testing need to be researched and decided by the team to be maintained according to the Software Under Test (SUT).
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PROSENJIT DAS
Life Science (LS ISG-Products&Platforms) | Functional Testing | Accessibility Testing | Agile | UI/UX Testing | App Testing | API Testing | SQL
Unit tests play a critical role in preventing bugs in automation scripts by ensuring that the individual components or units of your script function correctly. It isolate specific components or functions within your automation script. This isolation allows you to test individual functions, methods, or classes in isolation, ensuring that they work as expected independently of other parts of the script. Also, Unit tests facilitate code refactoring and maintenance. When you need to make changes to your automation script, you can rely on your unit tests to ensure that the components you modify still work correctly, reducing the risk of introducing new bugs during updates.
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Sometimes, you may encounter bugs in your test automation scripts that are not obvious or easy to fix. In these cases, you need to use debugging tools and techniques that can help you find the root cause and the solution of the bugs. For example, you can use breakpoints, step-by-step execution, watches, and logs to inspect the state and behavior of your code during the test execution. You can also use tools like Selenium IDE or Chrome DevTools to record, replay, and analyze your test actions and web elements.
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Niranjan Limbachiya
CEO @ KiwiQA Services | Core Testing, Digital Assurance, Consulting
It's essential to utilize debugging tools and techniques effectively. Debugging allows for the identification and resolution of script issues before they become critical errors. Techniques like step-through debugging, logging, and breakpoint usage aid in pinpointing problems within the code. Comprehensive testing and peer reviews also play a vital role in bug prevention. Additionally, maintaining code consistency, following coding standards, and performing regular code refactoring ensure script reliability. By embracing these practices and being proactive in debugging, automation scripts can be made more robust and dependable, contributing to a smoother testing process and higher software quality.
Another tip to prevent bugs in your test automation scripts is to handle exceptions and errors that may occur during the test execution. Exceptions and errors are events that disrupt the normal flow of your code and may cause your test to fail or stop. To handle them, you should use try-catch blocks, assertions, or custom error messages that can catch, report, or recover from the exceptions and errors. You should also use tools like TestNG or JUnit that can provide annotations, listeners, or reporters that can help you handle exceptions and errors in a consistent and organized way.
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Rodrigo Costa
Principal QA Engineer | Test Automation | Software Developer in Test (SDET) | Author, Lecturer, Professor
Robust error handling is essential for reliable test automation scripts. Anticipating and effectively managing exceptions and errors ensures uninterrupted test execution and provides valuable insights into application behavior. By implementing exception handling strategies, test scripts become more resilient, informative, and less prone to failures.
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Vinod Ramireddy
Test Engineer bei Samsung SDI | ISTQB®- AuT | ISTQB®-CTFL | EVAL-3(HV-3, 3E) | HIL | SIL| EV |ADAS |Airbag | Automotive | CAN | Diagnostics | Bootloader |AGILE |V&V | Inverter| Battery Pack
This was the most helpful for any programmer! 1. Exceptions: The general tendency of any programmer is to know that his/her logic will work fine in any way of scripting. If we are always handling exceptions in the script, this really saves time in debugging and second the script will be more stable or solid. I agree your code may increase, but if it's unintended wrong, exceptions will come into the picture. 2. Comments : Dividing the code with block commenting or writing comments in code would make one's program strong. 3. Null Values : As per my experience, sometimes adding '0' in conditions hangs your PCs, so possible to avoid those by Eg: A<1 instead of A == 0.
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Finally, you should keep your test automation scripts updated and maintained to prevent bugs that may arise from changes in the software product, the test environment, or the test requirements. You should regularly review, refactor, and optimize your code to remove any obsolete, redundant, or inefficient code. You should also use tools like version control, configuration management, or continuous integration that can help you manage, track, and automate the changes and updates in your code.
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Rodrigo Costa
Principal QA Engineer | Test Automation | Software Developer in Test (SDET) | Author, Lecturer, Professor
As applications evolve and new features emerge, test scripts often become obsolete, requiring ongoing maintenance. Consider an e-commerce website undergoing a significant redesign, introducing a revamped checkout process and payment gateway integration. Neglecting to update the checkout process test scripts would result in untested new functionalities, potentially leading to undetected bugs and customer dissatisfaction. To maintain script integrity, establish a clear update process, automate test execution, incorporate code review practices, and document script changes with rationale. By prioritizing script maintenance, testers can ensure their automation efforts align with the application's evolving landscape.
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Niranjan Limbachiya
CEO @ KiwiQA Services | Core Testing, Digital Assurance, Consulting
To prevent bugs in your test automation scripts, it's imperative to keep them updated and well-maintained. Regularly review and refine your scripts to align with changes in the application under test. Stay vigilant for updates in software versions, and adjust your scripts accordingly. Implement version control to track changes effectively. Additionally, conduct routine code reviews and testing to identify and rectify potential issues early in the development process. This proactive approach ensures that your automation scripts remain robust and reliable, reducing the likelihood of bugs creeping in and facilitating smooth testing workflows.
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Rahul Arora
Engineering Lead at Pay2 DC(Development centre of Paypay Japan) -Ex-Gojek, Ex-Paytm
The basic concepts of keeping test scripts bug free - Regular monitor your test results and fix the issues - Update your test cases as per new requirements - Use different environments to run your test cases - If your test cases are related to mobile then use different types of device to make sure the test cases are stable
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Vinod Ramireddy
Test Engineer bei Samsung SDI | ISTQB®- AuT | ISTQB®-CTFL | EVAL-3(HV-3, 3E) | HIL | SIL| EV |ADAS |Airbag | Automotive | CAN | Diagnostics | Bootloader |AGILE |V&V | Inverter| Battery Pack
With the Mindset, the Tester is not testing to qualify the Software but the Tester should test to fail Software. -- For effective ways of testing, applying the testing techniques boundary value analysis, Equivalence partition etc. can also help you to find out the behaviour of different data types. E.g: Q) Req: F1 car, char Speed After Applying the Test technique, Can you predict what might be the problem here? A ): This test case fails at the maximum boundary that is Speed > 255 (256) cannot be achieved since the variable data type is wrong -- Try to be more attentive in Scrum meetings. The discussions between the System and SW also give more broader understanding of the requirement and help tester write an effective test case
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