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What is Test Composer™?



Test Composer™ is a testing tool especially designed for CA Gen applications. It enables developers to test CA Gen server procedures, components and action blocks thoroughly outside the CA Gen environment with a large number of controlled test cases and expected results.


Test Composer™ can be used for local testing on Win32 platforms. It can also perform remote server procedure testing utilizing the native CA Gen client/server infrastructure.


Component based development is supported by enabling testing components on local platforms, and testing transactions using components


Test Composer™ also has the ability to interface with Canam Software's application report writer and test data generator.


It can use Data Composer ™ to generate test cases for the test packages


It can test Report Composer ® generated External Action Blocks (EABs)

 

How Does it Work?

It does this by generating a wrapper for any action block (and ultimately procedure steps as well), and building an executable package. Then our Test Manager enables you to create and store in a database, a catalog of test scenarios, including a few or thousands of individual test cases to exhaustively test the business logic. A comparison tool enables comparing actual results with expected test results in an automated fashion.

 

What are the Benefits of Using test Composer™?

Of the layers of the software architecture, the business logic layer is the one that has long-term implications and strategic value to a business enterprise. User Interfaces (UIs) come and go with technological changes but the value of the business logic is much more constant. In many cases the same core business logic implementations successfully serve their user community over many years through first block mode, then GUI, and now Web front ends. It is the inherent value of the business logic that makes this possible.


If we accept that the business logic is the long-term strategic investment then obviously that is where we should focus our efforts to make them robust, high quality and maintainable. A significant part of this focus is testing. Testing tools typically address testing via the UI. While UIs must be tested for apps to be usable it is important to note that if testing is performed strictly via UIs we are restricted to testing logic paths that are supported by and invoked by actions available in the UI software.


The net effect is that the underlying business logic is not fully tested and therefore cannot be thought of as completely tested. Of course, this has potential downstream effects in the maintenance cycle of the system. It also does not support component based development fully or even partially. The business logic 'components' (i.e. black boxes) are not 'certified' to be functioning as per their 'interface' or API implemented as import/export views.

 

Test Composer™ Benefits

  • Model driven application testing.
  • Appropriate level of testing for each stage of the development life cycle.
  • Testing focuses on business logic - your organization's long term strategic investment!
  • Group your test cases into test scenarios and execute them 'batched' together to reduce testing time.
  • Your testing becomes repeatable to move your organization toward enjoying SCI CMM benefits.
  • Your test data becomes and asset use throughout the system development and maintenance life cycle.
  • Use Test Composer™ for both testing new development and regression testing!
  • Automated CA Gen model driven change control with the version control facility!
  • Create and manage multiple test scenarios for a test package!
  • Create expected test results and compare them automatically to the actual results.
  • Test your CABs, procedures, and components locally on your Win32 platform!
  • Test your server procedures remotely in a client/server environment using native CA Gen infrastructure!
  • Find out what statements have never been executed using a particular test scenario on your local platform!
  • Examine the performance of your action diagrams by running the performance analysis reports on your local test packages!
  • Use local CA Gen tracing to easily trouble shoot bugs experienced during testing.
  • Supports both traditional and CBD development.