Regression Testing Ajax Applications: Coping with Dynamism

Abstract

Abstract-There is a growing trend to move desktop applications towards the web using advances made in web technologies such as AJAX. One common way to provide assurance about the correctness of such complex and evolving systems is through regression testing. Regression testing classical web applications has already been a notoriously daunting task because of the dynamism in web interfaces. AJAX applications pose an even greater challenge since the test case fragility degree is higher due to extensive run-time manipulation of the DOM tree and asynchronous client/server interactions. In this paper, we propose a technique, in which we automatically generate test cases and apply pipelined oracle comparators along with generated DOM templates, to deal with dynamic non-deterministic behavior in AJAX user interfaces. Our approach, implemented in CRAWLJAX, is open source and provides a set of generic oracle comparators, template generators, and visualizations of test failure output. We describe two case studies evaluating the effectiveness, scalability, and required manual effort of the approach.

Invariant-Based Automatic Testing of Modern Web Applications

“…In our recent work [33], we have presented how our approach can be used for conducting regression testing of highly dynamic web applications. The initial results are very promising: through a number of case studies, we show how generated test suites can detect regressions in different versions of a web application, through oracle comparator pipelining.…”

“…Furthermore, the test suite can be applied to altered versions of the AJAX application to support regression testing: For the unaltered user interface, the test cases should pass, and only for altered user interface code failures might occur (also helping the tester to understand what has truly changed). For further details on how this technique is used for regression testing AJAX applications, we refer to our recent paper [33].…”

“…this crawler can be applied for testing purposes. Since then, we have used CRAWLJAX in a range of projects (see, e.g., [33], [6]), resulting in numerous improvements to the crawler and the testing approach. In the subsequent sections we provide an integrated presentation of our most recent developments concerning the crawling algorithm.…”

“…Since the first publication on CRAWLJAX [24], a range of improvements to the tool and the underlying algorithms have been realized. Furthermore, the tool and testing approach have been applied to several AJAX applications (see, e.g., [33], [6]). In this paper, we provide an integrated presentation of the full approach, incorporating the most recent developments concerning the crawling algorithm, the testing approach, the available plugins, and the application of the approach to a range of different AJAX applications, of which six are covered in substantial detail.…”

“…16 [14] detects JavaScript and DOM invariants dynamically ProxyServer, OnNewState, PostCrawling CrossBrowser Tester [26] checks each state in three different browsers looking for cross-browser incompatibilities PostCrawling RegressionTester [33] conducts regression tests PostCrawlng RQ2 What is the fault revealing capability and effectiveness of our testing approach? RQ3 What is the performance of the proposed approach, and how well does it scale?…”