Notes on Test Automation (III) – Test Configuration Formats

This is the third installment in the Notes on Test Automation series.

So far I have published one article in this series about Test Encapsulation, which focuses on making tests the most powerful part of a framework, and one about Distributed Testing Models, in which various types of implementation of distributed testing and their pros/cons were discussed. In this article, I am going to discuss formats of test configuration as applicable to the design of Test Automation Frameworks (hereafter referred to as TAFs).

A TAF under most scenarios would provide a mechanism for the end user to configure tests for a test cycle, in which various properties can be configured. Even in basic TAFs, this is kept outside of the code for ease of use, maintainability etc. Some common configurable properties which a TAF can provide via a test configuration include specifying the tests to be executed, the build under test, type of build, minimum priority of tests to be run, whether only tests that have known associated bugs are to be executed, and so on.

The article is available as a PDF file here (~ 0.65 MB): Notes on Test Automation – Test Configuration Formats

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Rahul Verma