Overview

This tutorial is intended to introduce the first-time user to the Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-Based Applications. What is this tool and why does it deserve such a long name? The Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-Based Applications is an add-on, or extension, to Rational Functional Tester that enables the latter to perform functional regression testing on terminal-based applications. While the product name is very descriptive and utilitarian, it is a bit cumbersome in conversation. For brevity's sake, in this tutorial we'll generally just refer to it as the Extension.

This tutorial will help you record, edit, and execute your first regression test against a terminal-based application using the Extension. We will touch on some of the challenges of testing terminal-based applications and see how many of the core capabilities of Rational Functional Tester and the Extension meet those challenges. This is by no means an exhaustive tour of all the capabilities of Rational Functional Tester and the Extension. That could take days! This tutorial is really intended to give you a jump-start on the basics in about an hour.

Upon completion of this tutorial, you will have learned:

• How to record a Functional Tester regression test against a sample terminal-based application
• How Functional Tester captures your interactions with the application into a Java script
• How ScriptAssure Technology makes your tests robust against user interface (UI) changes in the application under test
• How to verify both static and dynamic content in your application

Who should take this tutorial?

If you are already an IBM Rational Functional Tester user and you would like to learn a little about the Extension that makes it possible to test terminal-based applications with that same tool, you are in the right place.

If you are searching for a way to automate the functional regression testing of terminal-based applications and have never used Rational Functional Tester -- or any automated testing tool, for that matter -- you might want to do a little homework before running through this tutorial. Start with the developerWorks tutorial Automate regression tests: IBM Rational Functional Tester makes regression testing a snap or the tutorial Learn how to create robust, reusable automated functional tests with Rational Functional Tester in the Hello World tutorial series. These tutorials will give you the basics on which to build with this tutorial.

If you already use the Extension and want to get a deep knowledge of how it works and can solve problems specific to your environment, you are probably not in the right place. As noted in the previous section, this tutorial will start at the beginning and quickly make you competent in the basics of recording and playing scripts against a terminal-based application. For more Rational tutorials, see Resources.

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System requirements

You are going to need a few things to complete the steps in this tutorial.

• If you don't already own the Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-Based Applications, you can download a fully functional trial version of Rational Functional Tester. The installation process is described later in this tutorial.
• Functional Tester supports two scripting languages: the Java™ language and Visual Basic .NET. For crafting tests using the Java language, Functional Tester includes the Eclipse open source development environment. No further installation steps are required. If you want to use the Visual Basic .NET scripting language, Visual Studio .NET must be installed on your system before you install IBM Rational Functional Tester. Visual Studio .NET is available for purchase from Microsoft®.
• In addition to Rational Functional Tester and the Extension, you will also need a small package, HostSim.zip, for the purposes of this tutorial. This package will simulate the 3270 traffic from a host-based application.

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Table of contents

• Overview
• Why use the Extension?
• Getting started
• Create your test
• Review the script
• Run your test
• Wrap up
• Download
• Resources
• About the author

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