Test Tools
This is a repository of some test tools written, in whole or part, by James Bach, or authorized to be distributed by him. These tools are free and open source. They are offered under the GPL 2.0 license.
ALLPAIRS Test Case Generation Tool (Version 1.2.1)
Download ALLPAIRS (ZIP format; includes a little tutorial and example)
Let's say you must test something that involves a lot of different variables. Configuration testing is like that: different printers, different print options, different documents. Who knows what combination will fail? But you can't try all combinations of all variables together, because that would be too many tests. So instead, you could create tests that pair each value of each of the variables with each value of each other variable at least once. Allpairs is a tool I wrote that will find a reasonably small set of test cases to satisfy that coverage standard. For instance, to try all combinations of 10 variables with ten values each would require 10,000,000,000 test cases. Allpairs only requires 177 cases. Allpairs is a command-line executable based on a Perl script. Source is included.
Perlclip
Download PerlClip (ZIP format)
Sometimes you need to test a text field or document with different kinds of stressful inputs. But, it can be a pain to prepare the text data. PerlClip is a tool that helps you do that. PerlClip places prepared text into the Windows clipboard so you can paste it wherever you need it.
You can run the Perl script, or click on the EXE version (a DOS console window appears when you do that). Enter the text pattern you want to produce. You can enter the following things:
- Any Perl code, such as the following:
"james" produces james
"james" x 5 produces jamesjamesjamesjamesjames
"a" x (2 ** 16) produces a string of "a" 2 to the 16th power (65536) in length
chr(13) x 10 produces ten carriage returns
"X" x 1000000 produces a string of one million X's
- $allchars produces a string that includes all character codes from 1 to 255 (0 not included).
- counterstring {num} [{char}] produces a special string of length {num} that counts its own characters.
"counterstring 10" would produce "*3*5*7*10*" which is a ten-character long string, such that each asterisk is at a position in the string equal to the number that precedes it.
This is useful for pasting into fields that cut off text, so that you can tell how many characters were actually pasted. You can specify a separator other than asterisk. "counterstring 15 A" would produce "A3A5A7A9A12A15A"
- textfile {name} loads the contents of a specified text file into the clipboard.
When you see the "Ready to Paste!" message, the clipboard is prepared.
Log-Watch
Download Log-Watch (ZIP format)
Do you ever test something that creates a log file as it goes, reporting strange events and possibly errors that might not appear through the UI? It might be useful to have a little audio feedback while you're testing, so you can use your ears to home in on interesting patterns while your eyes are focused on the screen.
This is a simple tool that watches a streaming text file, such as a server log file, and plays sounds when certain strings appear. Run it from a DOS command-line by providing the path of a file you want to monitor, like so: log-watch C:\logs\access.log
Edit watchlist.txt to include the strings you want to monitor and the corresponding WAV files you'd like to play. It's a tab-delimited file. For example:
error error.wav exception error.wav /\b4\d\d\b/ code_4xx.wav pdf pdf.wav
If you put forward slashes before and after the string in the first column, it will be treated as a Perl regular expression. Otherwise it will be treated as a literal string. So, the weird looking third line, above, will match any number from 400 to 499 if it appears with whitespace around it.
Every time a string or pattern on the left is found, the wave file on the right will be played and the corresponding line printed to STDOUT. Be sure that the WAV files you reference are in the working directory of the tool. The error.wav file I've included is my own raspy voice during a bout of bronchitis. It sounds better now.
