Record and Playback

 
WinRunner

 

 Has a recording facility allowing you to record in either context sensitive mode or in analogue mode. It has rich command line functions that allow you to run the scripts on start up. WinRunner recognizes two variable types: number or a string. There is no need to declare variables up front. The scripting language is knows as TSL (Test Script Language). TSL provides usual array of functions and syntax, but is also has specific functions for WAP, which are used through an emulator.

 
QA Run

 

 Has a learn facility for recording and playback. This can be started by clicking the learn button on the tool bar. There are various ways to playback scripts e.g. command line and via the toolbar. It also has a facility: RunAWL. RunAWL is Compuware’s script execution module that allows you to select scripts to run without having to open the script editor.

 
Silk Test

 

 Has two main ways to start recording: one is through it’s quickstart window and the other from the toolbar->file->New. Silk Test uses an identifier and a tag to identify each object individually. You can use multi-tags to make this identification more unique. Silk Test uses object-oriented approach. Each object on the screen is based on a class. Silk Test supports in excess of 20 data types including: Boolean, long, number, string, semaphore, set, time, window etc. It supports classes, inheritance, collapsing and opening various parts of your script.

 
Visual Test

 

 Provides the facility to record and playback scripts. Clicking on the ‘tape cassette’ icon on the toolbar starts the recording session. Each recording session is given a scenario name if objects are not recognized when you click then a dialog will pop up asking you to associate the unknown window/object with a know type. It supports following data types: Integer, short, long, single, double, string, pointer and variant. Scripts are compiled to P-code and so can be run on other machines.

 
Robot

 

 Provides the ability to record test using a red GUI button; you can also record (Virtual user) test scripts to play back in LoadTest (another tool by Rational). Robot uses a language very similar to Visual Basic called SQABasic. It supports the following data types: String, Integer, Long, Variant, object, single, double, currency, user-defined. User defined allows you to build a mixture of data types similar to a ‘struct’ in C or a ‘record’ is Pascal.

 
QA Wizard

 

 Uses a visual and menu driven approach for creating scripts. It provides an easy to use paint-and-click approach to scripting. People with very little knowledge in scripting can record and playback with this tool.