KnowledgeInbox (By Tarun Lalwani)

General run error while calling a function

Tarun Lalwani — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:39:38 +0000

ecently while debugging a QTP Script i was getting a “General Run Error” while calling a function. After many runs of the test, i finally found the root cause for the issue. The issue can be reproduced in the way shown below Create a library file with the code shown below and associate it with the [...]

Performing action on multiple objects

Tarun Lalwani — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:00:45 +0000

At times, there are situations where we need to execute the same operation on multiple objects. Example of such situations is listed below Checking/Unchecking all Check Boxes on a web page Setting all the Text Boxes to blank value Selecting the first possible value for every WebRadioGroup The usual way to do it in Descriptive Programming (DP) is to [...]

Difference between Test and Action Parameters

Tarun Lalwani — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:14:48 +0000

Many QTP user confuse between Test and Action Parameters. This article will explains both the concepts in details and eliminate any confusion. QTP Help does not describe the method of using Test Parameters Test Parameters Test Parameters can be used to pass values to the test and retrieve values when the test completes. They are global parameters [...]

How to delete browser cookies in QTP?

Tarun Lalwani — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:41:07 +0000

Web applications uses cookies to store user related information. While testing these cookies might interfere with the results of test. It is recommended to delete cookies before starting new test. In this article we will see how to delete cookies for a browser. Different browser stores cookies in different places and in different format. Deleting IE Cookies IE [...]

How to make hidden elements on a web page visible

Tarun Lalwani — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:04:13 +0000

In one of the recent articles ‘Exist returns True even when the object does not exists’ we saw how elements can be hidden on a web page using CSS. To analyze the complexity of a web page we should make sure it does not have many hidden elements, as they make automation difficult sometimes. We [...]

Firefox is not recognized as Browser after upgrade

Tarun Lalwani — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 20:29:11 +0000

I recently upgraded my QTP from version 9.2 to 9.5. The upgrade was does after doing a clean uninstall using my QTP Clean Uninstaller tool. Even after the clean uninstall, i found that QTP 9.5 was not recognizing Firefox a Browser but as a Window test object. The issue seemed to be with Firefox caching [...]

Object repository window does not show up

Tarun Lalwani — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:18:24 +0000

Sometimes clicking on the Object Repository (OR) button on the toolbar does not bring up the Object Repository window. This issue mostly happens with people who use Multiple monitors with QTP and place the Object Repository window on the secondary monitor. When they relaunch QTP with only one monitor connected, QTP remembers the old co-ordinates [...]

Maintaining list of class objects created

Tarun Lalwani — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:57:05 +0000

At times, we might want to maintain a list of all objects which are created for an object. We will not discuss the situations where it would be required, but we will see how it’s done. To store the list of object we can use the Dictionary objects. When we create classes object the first event [...]

Exporting data table every N iterations

Tarun Lalwani — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:59:05 +0000

It is recommended to export the results of a test with huge iterations periodically. This minimizes the loss of results in case QTP or the system crashes. In this article we will look at a method which will export the data table after specified no. of iterations. 'Global counter for iterations Dim iAfterIterations iAfterIterations = 0 'Author: Tarun Lalwani 'Website: [...]

Announcing the launch of KnowledgeInbox forums

Tarun Lalwani — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:06:16 +0000

It gives me great pleasure to announce the launch for new KnowledgeInbox forums. It’s something my readers have been missing from a long time. The forum will be focused on QTP and KnowledgeInbox tools. Click here to launch the forum Note: Users need to register on the blog to access the forums. There is no need for [...]

Exist returns True even when the object does not exists

Tarun Lalwani — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 07:27:54 +0000

Checking Exist property for a Test object might return True even when the object is not present on the screen. Though this is not an issue with QTP but there could be 2 possible reasons behind this. This article walks through both the reasons in details Root Cause #1 - Smart identification being used to identify [...]

Guidelines for Automation framework design

Tarun Lalwani — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:25:31 +0000

Introduction A Framework defines a set of guidelines for all phases of test automation: Requirement Analysis, Script Design, Execution, Reporting and maintenance. A framework can be a wrapper around some complex internal architecture which makes it easy to use for the end user. It also enforces a set of standards for implementation Problem Statement There is no standard [...]

QTP Clean Uninstaller v2

Tarun Lalwani — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:56:29 +0000

The version 2.0 of QTP Clean Uninstaller is now out. It does a lot more than version 1.0. Here are list of changes that went in version 2.0 Fixed bug in the key scanning process which used to add non-existent keys Fixed bug in the QTP keys where the count was shown as 2 even after cleaning No [...]

Reversing words “This is a test” to “test a is This”

Tarun Lalwani — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:55:28 +0000

This article will demonstrate how to reverse word in a string. VBScript has many string methods like Left, Mid, Right, Split, Join and Len for string manipulation. Creating a code generic enough to handle such string correctly is a complex task. But the task is much simpler when we use regular expressions (r.e.). The key here [...]

GetTOProperty Vs GetROProperty

Tarun Lalwani — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:44:05 +0000

QTP provides 4 methods for working on a Test object properties GetTOProperty SetTOProperty GetTOProperties GetROProperty A lot of times developers (Yes we are not testers) using QTP mix these methods and don’t know which one to use in which situation. After reading this article you will clearly understand Why, When and How to use these methods. Before we go deep into [...]

Disable smart identification using code

Tarun Lalwani — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:57:25 +0000

In my recent article Is Smart Identification really smart? i demonstrated why not to use to QTP Smart identification feature. QTP Smart identification setting is test level setting which means if you earlier had SI enabled for your script and now wanted to disable it you either need to use QTP AOM (Automation Object Model) [...]

Is Smart Identification really smart?

Tarun Lalwani — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:11:53 +0000

I have always been against the use of QTP Smart Identification (SI) feature whether it is development time to when the script are actually deployed for live testing. The reason behind this dislike is not personal but something logical. Most people think that Smart identification should be enabled when deploying the test scripts for live [...]

Formatting date and time

Tarun Lalwani — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:27:33 +0000

Formatting a date/time to the required format is a complex job when working with various times zones or different date formats (Ex - dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy). VB provides a very convenient method named Format to do these formatting. But unfortunately it’s pretty much a missing functionality in VBScript. The code i present in this article [...]

Parameterizing your strings

Tarun Lalwani — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:01:45 +0000

Strings are widely used in VBScript to pass information. This information might contain static and/or dynamic data. Ex - a data base connection string “Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Data.xls;Extended Properties=”"Excel 8.0;HDR=Yes;IMEX=1″”;” In the above string dynamic data is the excel file name “C:\Data.xls”. This article will show various ways to do the parameterization of this value. The wrong way to do [...]

Getting blank wordpress dashboard on clicking dashboard again

Tarun Lalwani — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:29:28 +0000

I rarely look at my wordpress dashboard. But recently after upgrading my site i found that the Dashboard becomes blank when i click on it again. But when i login for the first time the dashboard is displayed correctly. Finally after some googling i found out that it is caused by index.php present in the [...]

Getting blank pages on saving wordpress admin forms

Tarun Lalwani — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:15:59 +0000

I recently upgraded my blog KnowledgeInbox by customizing Wordpress. I developed the whole theme on my local windows PC and had no issues working with the same. Hoping for a smooth deployment to the actual server i didn’t create a beta folder to test the new website. I backed up the old website and made [...]

Preserving format of values in DataTable

Tarun Lalwani — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:56:49 +0000

DataTable are excel based files which can be used to store information required during the test. Any value entered into the data table cells, excel/datatable will automatically try to change the format to appropriate one. When we enter “1234567890123″ in the data table, it will automatically format it to “1.23456789E+012″. To preserve the format we need [...]

Exist returns False even when the object exist

Tarun Lalwani — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:51:51 +0000

Exist method of QTP sometimes returns False even when the object exists. There could be 3 possible reasons in my opinion Possible cause #1 One reason for this issue could be used of wrong properties to identify the object. Ex - you might be using a html id which has been changed now. Possible cause #2 There are multiple [...]

Getting files from current script location

Tarun Lalwani — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:41:52 +0000

While running a VBScript file from the WScript host, one might want to access the file located in the same folder as the script. WScript does not run your script keeping the current directory as the folder in which the script located. Using just the file name like “Logs.txt”, “Input.xls” will try to access the [...]

Working with double quotes inside strings

Tarun Lalwani — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:51:51 +0000

Strings in VBScript are represented by enclosing the string inside starting and ending double quotes as shown below strText = “Tarun Lalwani” But to represent “Tarun Lalwani” (including the quotes) below code won’t work because of the syntax error strText = “”Tarun Lalwani”" The issue with above code is that first pair of “” marks the end of the [...]

Identifying custom windows control

Tarun Lalwani — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:30:34 +0000

QTP identifies windows object using their classes. All default class map to a specified window Test object in QTP. Ex – The “Edit” class maps to WinEdit test object, “Static” class maps to the Static Test object. Objects inside applications developed using standard windows API can be easily identified and automated through QTP. But at times applications [...]

Site upgrade phase 2 complete

Tarun Lalwani — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:03:05 +0000

I have always committed myself to keep KnowledgeInbox as one of the best resources for QTP around the world. Phase 2 upgrade for KnowledgeInbox was deployed yesterday on 3rd December 2008. The upgrade was initiated on 1st dec but due to some technical glitches the upgrade didn’t not complete until yesterday night. I have been working [...]

General run error while saving the test

Tarun Lalwani — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:53:25 +0000

Another general error, well with poor error propagation of QTP it gets hard to debug these general run error. There could be several root causes for this error Trying to save to QC when the QTP-QC connection has already timed out Trying to save to QC when QC server has no more space left. Space crunch on [...]