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SQL Server FAQSQL Server FAQ''s

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:19:00 +0000

Why are my insert, update statements failing with the following error?

Server: Msg 8152, Level 16, State 9, Line 1
String or binary data would be truncated.
The statement has been terminated.

This error occurs, when the length of the value entered by you into a char, varchar, nchar, nvarchar column is longer than the maximum length of the column. For example, inserting 'FAQ' into a char(2) column would result in this error.

Profiler is handy in troubleshooting this error. If data truncation is okay with you and you don't want to see this error, then turn off ANSI WARNINGS by using the following SET command: SET ANSI_WARNINGS OFF.

Steps to reproduce the problem:

CREATE TABLE MyTable
(
Pkey int PRIMARY KEY,
Col1 char(10)
)
GO
INSERT INTO MyTable (Pkey, Col1) VALUES (1, 'SQL Server Clustering FAQ')
GO

Make sure, you restrict the length of input, in your front-end applications. For example, you could use the MAXLENGTH property of the text boxes in HTML forms. E.g:

What is the T-SQL equivalent of IIF (immediate if/ternary operator) function of other programming languages?

CASE is the equivalent of IIF function. See SQL Server Books Online for more information. Here's a quick example:

CREATE TABLE People
(
[ID] int PRIMARY KEY,
[Name] varchar(25) NOT NULL,
Sex bit NULL
)

INSERT INTO People ([ID],[Name], Sex) VALUES (1,'John Dykes', 1)
INSERT INTO People ([ID],[Name], Sex) VALUES (2,'Deborah Crook', 0)
INSERT INTO People ([ID],[Name], Sex) VALUES (3,'P S Subramanyam', NULL)

SELECT [ID], [Name],
CASE Sex
WHEN 1
THEN 'Male'
WHEN 0
THEN 'Female'
ELSE 'Not specified'
END AS Sex
FROM People

How to programmatically find out when the SQL Server service started?

Everytime SQL Server starts, it recreates the tempdb database. So, the creation date and time of the tempdb database tells us the date and time at which SQL Server service started. This information is stored in the crdate column of the sysdatabases table in master database. Here's the query to find that out:

SELECT crdate AS 'SQL Server service started approximately at:'
FROM master.dbo.sysdatabases
WHERE name = 'tempdb'

SQL Server error log also has this information (This is more accurate) and the error log can be queried using xp_readerrorlog

How to get rid of the time part from the date returned by GETDATE function?

We have to use the CONVERT function to strip the time off the date. Any of the following commands will do this:

SELECT CONVERT(char,GETDATE(),101)
SELECT CONVERT(char,GETDATE(),102)
SELECT CONVERT(char,GETDATE(),103)
SELECT CONVERT(char,GETDATE(),1)

See SQL Server Books Online for more information on CONVERT function.

How to upload images or binary files into SQL Server tables?

First of all, if possible, try not to stored images and other binary files in the SQL Server tables, as they slow things down. Instead, store a link (file path) to the file in the tables and let your applications directly access the files. But if you must store these files within SQL Server, use the text/ntext or image datatype columns and consider the following options:

SQL Server 7.0 and 2000 come with a utility called textcopy.exe. You can locate this file in the Binn folder under your SQL Server installation folder. Run this file from command prompt, and it will prompt you for required input
Use the GetChunk and AppendChunk methods of ADO Field object. MSDN has examples
Use the ADO Stream object
Use the Bulk Insert Image utility (BII) that ships with SQL Server 2000 (Can be found at \Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\80\Tools\Devtools\Samples\Utils)

How to run an SQL script file that is located on the disk, using T-SQL?

There's no direct command to read a script file and execute it. But the isql.exe and osql.exe come in handy when you have to execute a script file from within T-SQL. Just call any of these exes using xp_cmdshell and pass the script file name as parameter to it. See SQL Server Books Online for more information about the input parameters of these exes. Here are some quick examples:

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'osql -Svaio -Usa -Pzaassds1 -ic:\MySQl.sql -n'
EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'isql -Svaio -Usa -Pzaassds1 -ic:\MySQl.sql -n'

See xp_cmdshell in SQL Server Books Online if you are having permissions problems in getting this technique to work.

How to get the complete error message from T-SQL while error handling?

Unfortunately, the error handling capabilities of SQL Server are limited. When an error occurs, all you can get is the error number, using the @@ERROR global variable. There is no @@ERROR_MESSAGE global variable to get the error description.

For a complete error message, you can always query the master..sysmessages table using the error number, but most of these messages have place holders (like %s, %l etc.), and hence we can't get the complete error message.

However, the client applications using an object model such as RDO, ADO have access to the complete error message.

How to get the first day of the week, last day of the week and last day of the month using T-SQL date functions?

Here's the code:

DECLARE @Date datetime
SET @Date = '2001/08/31'
SELECT DATEADD(dd,-(DATEPART(dw, @Date) - 1),@Date) AS 'First day of the week'
SELECT DATEADD(dd,-(DATEPART(dw, @Date) - 7),@Date) AS 'Last day of the week'
SELECT DAY(DATEADD(d, -DAY(DATEADD(m,1,@Date)),DATEADD(m,1,@Date))) AS 'Last day of the month'

How to pass a table name, column name etc. to the stored procedure so that I can dynamically select from a table?

Basically, SELECT and other commands like DROP TABLE won't let you use a variable instead of a hardcoded table name. To overcome this problem, you have to use dynamic sql. But dynamic SQL has some disadvantages. It's slow, as the dynamic SQL statement needs to be parsed everytime it's executed. Further, the user who is executing the dynamic SQL string needs direct permissions on the tables, which defeats the purpose of having stored procedures to mask the underlying tables. Having said that, here are some examples of dynamic SQL: (Also see sp_executesql in SQL Server Books Online)

CREATE PROC DropTable
@Table sysname
AS
EXEC ('DROP TABLE ' + @Table)
GO

EXEC DropTable 'MyTable'
GO

CREATE PROC SelectTable
@Table sysname
AS
EXEC ('SELECT * FROM ' + @Table)
GO

EXEC SelectTable 'MyTable'

For a complete discussion on the pros and cons of dynamic SQL check out Erland's article:
The curse and blessings of dynamic SQL

Error inside a stored procedure is not being raised to my front-end applications using ADO. But I get the error when I run the procedure from Query Analyzer

This typically happens when your stored procedure is returning multiple resultsets and the offending SQL statement is executed after returning one or more resultsets. ADO will not return an error untill it processes all the recordsets returned before the offending SQL statement got executed. So, to get to the error message returned by your procedure. You have to loop through all the recordsets returned. ADO Recordset object has a method called NextRecordset, which lets you loop through the recordsets.

Having SET NOCOUNT ON at the beginning of the procedure also helps avoid this problem. SET NOCOUNT ON also helps in improving the stored procedure performance. Here's a sample procedure to simulate the problem:

CREATE PROC TestProc
AS
SELECT MAX(Col1) FROM TestTable
SELECT MIN(Col1) FROM TestTable
INSERT INTO TestTable (Col1, Col2) VALUES (1,'Oracle and SQL Server comparison')
INSERT INTO TestTable (Col1, Col2) VALUES (1,'How to configure SQL Server?') -- Dupplicate key error occurs
GO

How to suppress error messages in stored procedures/triggers etc. using T-SQL?

It's not possible to suppress error messages from within T-SQL. Error messages are always returned to the client. If you don't want your users to see these raw error messages, you should handle them in your front-end applications. For example, if you are using ADO from ASP to connect to SQL Server, you would do something like the following:

On Error Resume Next
Set Rs = Conn.Execute ("INSERT INTO MyTable (1,'How to migrate from Oracle to SQL Server','Book'")
If Err.Number <> 0 Then Response.Write ("Error occurred while inserting new data")
On Error GoTo 0

How to save the output of a query/stored procedure to a text file using T-SQL?

T-SQL by itself has no support for saving the output of queries/stored procedures to text files. But you could achieve this using the command line utilities like isql.exe and osql.exe. You could either invoke these exe files directly from command prompt/batch files or from T-SQL using the xp_cmdshell command. Here are the examples:

From command prompt:
osql.exe -S YourServerName -U sa -P secretcode -Q "EXEC sp_who2" -o "E:\output.txt"

From T-SQL:
EXEC master..xp_cmdshell 'osql.exe -S YourServerName -U sa -P secretcode -Q "EXEC sp_who2" -o "E:\output.txt"'

Query Analyzer lets you save the query output to text files manually. The output of stored procedures that are run as a part of a scheduled job, can also be saved to a text file.

BCP and Data Transformation Services (DTS) let you export table data to text files.

How to join tables from different databases?

You just have to qualify the table names in your SELECT queries with database name, followed by table owner name. In the following example, Table1 from pubs database and Table2 from northwind database are being joined on the column i. Both tables are owned by dbo.

SELECT a.i, a.j
FROM pubs.dbo.Table1 a
INNER JOIN
northwind.dbo.Table2 b
ON a.i = b.i
GO

How to join tables from different servers?

To be able to join tables between two SQL Servers, first you have to link them. After the linked servers are setup, you just have to prefix your tables names with server name, database name, table owner name in your SELECT queries. The following example links SERVER_01 to SERVER_02. Execute the following commands in SERVER_02:

EXEC sp_addlinkedserver SERVER_01
GO

/* The following command links 'sa' login on SERVER_02 with the 'sa' login of SERVER_01 */
EXEC sp_addlinkedsrvlogin @rmtsrvname = 'SERVER_01', @useself = 'false', @locallogin = 'sa', @rmtuser = 'sa', @rmtpassword = 'sa password of SERVER_01'
GO

SELECT a.title_id
FROM SERVER_01.pubs.dbo.titles a
INNER JOIN SERVER_02.pubs.dbo.titles b
ON a.title_id = b.title_id
GO

How to convert timestamp data to date data (datetime datatype)?

The name timestamp is a little misleading. Timestamp data has nothing to do with dates and times and can not be converted to date data. A timestamp is a unique number within the database and is equivalent to a binary(8)/varbinary(8) datatype. A table can have only one timestamp column. Timestamp value of a row changes with every update of the row. To avoid the confusion, SQL Server 2000 introduced a synonym to timestamp, called rowversion.

Can I invoke/instantiate COM objects from within stored procedures or triggers using T-SQL?

Yes. SQL Server provides system stored procedures that let you instantiate COM objects using T-SQL from stored procedures, triggers and SQL batches. Search SQL Server Books Online for sp_OACreate and sp_OA* for documentation and examples. Also check out my code library for an example.

Oracle has a rownum to access rows of a table using row number or row id. Is there any equivalent for that in SQL Server? Or how to generate output with row number in SQL Server?

There is no direct equivalent to Oracle's rownum or row id in SQL Server. Strictly speaking, in a relational database, rows within a table are not ordered and a row id won't really make sense. But if you need that functionality, consider the following three alternatives:

Add an IDENTITY column to your table. See Books Online for more information
Use the following query to generate a row number for each row. The following query generates a row number for each row in the authors table of pubs database. For this query to work, the table must have a unique key.

SELECT (SELECT COUNT(i.au_id)
FROM pubs..authors i
WHERE i.au_id >= o.au_id ) AS RowID,
au_fname + ' ' + au_lname AS 'Author name'
FROM pubs..authors o
ORDER BY RowID
Use a temporary table approach, to store the entire resultset into a temporary table, along with a row id generated by the IDENTITY() function. Creating a temporary table will be costly, especially when you are working with large tables. Go for this approach, if you don't have a unique key in your table. Search for IDENTITY (Function) in SQL Server Books Online.

For more ideas on this topic, click here to read an informative article from Microsoft Knowledgebase.

How to specify a network library like TCP/IP using ADO connect string?

To specify TCP/IP net library, append the following to your ADO connect string:

Network=dbmssocn

For more information on specifying other net libraries in ADO connect strings, click here to read the article from Microsoft Knowledgebase.

Is there a way to find out when a stored procedure was last updated?

Simple answer is 'No'. The crdate column in the sysobjects table always contains the stored procedure create date, not the last updated date. You can use Profiler to trace ALTER PROC calls to the database, but you can't really afford to run a trace for ever, as it's resource intensive. Here is a simple idea! Whenever you have to alter your stored procedure, first drop it, then recreate it with the updated code. This resets the crdate column of sysobjects table. If you can make sure your developers always follow this plan, then the crdate column of sysobjects will always reflect the last updated date of the stored procedure. For example, if I have to modify a procedure named MyProc, instead of doing "ALTER PROC MyProc", here's what I would do:

- Use sp_helptext to get the current code of MyProc.
- Change the code as needed.
- Run the following code to drop the existing version of MyProc:

IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM sysobjects WHERE name = 'MyProc' AND type = 'P' AND USER_NAME(uid) = 'dbo')
BEGIN
DROP PROC dbo.MyProc
END

- Run the updated code to recreate MyProc

There is a much more powerful way out, if you can use Visual Source Safe (VSS). VSS is a version control software, that lets you manage your code. With VSS in place, you will have to maintain all your object creation scripts as script files and check them into VSS. When you have to modify a particular stored procedure, check out that script from VSS, modify it, test it, create the stored procedure, and check the script back into VSS. VSS can show you when a script got modified, by who and a whole lot of other information.

Advantages of using VSS
- You can version control your software, as VSS maintains all your changes as different versions
- You can go back to a previous known good version of your stored procedure, if a developer makes a mistake
- Using the labelling feature, you can revert back to an entire set of scripts at a particular point in time
- You can control access to your source code by configuring permissions to your developers
- By maintaining backups of VSS database, you can secure all your code centrally, instead of worrying about individual script files

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

SQL Server FAQSQL Server FAQ''

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 14:36:00 +0000

What is normalization? Explain different levels of normalization?

Check out the article Q100139 from Microsoft knowledge base and of course, there's much more information available in the net. It'll be a good idea to get a hold of any RDBMS fundamentals text book, especially the one by C. J. Date. Most of the times, it will be okay if you can explain till third normal form.

What is denormalization and when would you go for it?

As the name indicates, denormalization is the reverse process of normalization. It's the controlled introduction of redundancy in to the database design. It helps improve the query performance as the number of joins could be reduced.

How do you implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables?

One-to-One relationship can be implemented as a single table and rarely as two tables with primary and foreign key relationships.
One-to-Many relationships are implemented by splitting the data into two tables with primary key and foreign key relationships.
Many-to-Many relationships are implemented using a junction table with the keys from both the tables forming the composite primary key of the junction table.

It will be a good idea to read up a database designing fundamentals text book.

What's the difference between a primary key and a unique key?

Both primary key and unique enforce uniqueness of the column on which they are defined. But by default primary key creates a clustered index on the column, where are unique creates a nonclustered index by default. Another major difference is that, primary key doesn't allow NULLs, but unique key allows one NULL only.

What are user defined datatypes and when you should go for them?

User defined datatypes let you extend the base SQL Server datatypes by providing a descriptive name, and format to the database. Take for example, in your database, there is a column called Flight_Num which appears in many tables. In all these tables it should be varchar(8). In this case you could create a user defined datatype called Flight_num_type of varchar(8) and use it across all your tables.

See sp_addtype, sp_droptype in books online.

What is bit datatype and what's the information that can be stored inside a bit column?

Bit datatype is used to store boolean information like 1 or 0 (true or false). Untill SQL Server 6.5 bit datatype could hold either a 1 or 0 and there was no support for NULL. But from SQL Server 7.0 onwards, bit datatype can represent a third state, which is NULL.

Define candidate key, alternate key, composite key.

A candidate key is one that can identify each row of a table uniquely. Generally a candidate key becomes the primary key of the table. If the table has more than one candidate key, one of them will become the primary key, and the rest are called alternate keys.

A key formed by combining at least two or more columns is called composite key.

What are defaults? Is there a column to which a default can't be bound?

A default is a value that will be used by a column, if no value is supplied to that column while inserting data. IDENTITY columns and timestamp columns can't have defaults bound to them. See CREATE DEFUALT in books online.

SQL Server architecture

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What is a transaction and what are ACID properties?

A transaction is a logical unit of work in which, all the steps must be performed or none. ACID stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. These are the properties of a transaction. For more information and explanation of these properties, see SQL Server books online or any RDBMS fundamentals text book.

Explain different isolation levels

An isolation level determines the degree of isolation of data between concurrent transactions. The default SQL Server isolation level is Read Committed. Here are the other isolation levels (in the ascending order of isolation): Read Uncommitted, Read Committed, Repeatable Read, Serializable. See SQL Server books online for an explanation of the isolation levels. Be sure to read about SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL, which lets you customize the isolation level at the connection level.

CREATE INDEX myIndex ON myTable(myColumn)

What type of Index will get created after executing the above statement?

Non-clustered index. Important thing to note: By default a clustered index gets created on the primary key, unless specified otherwise.

What's the maximum size of a row?

8060 bytes. Don't be surprised with questions like 'what is the maximum number of columns per table'. Check out SQL Server books online for the page titled: "Maximum Capacity Specifications".

Explain Active/Active and Active/Passive cluster configurations

Hopefully you have experience setting up cluster servers. But if you don't, at least be familiar with the way clustering works and the two clusterning configurations Active/Active and Active/Passive. SQL Server books online has enough information on this topic and there is a good white paper available on Microsoft site.

Explain the architecture of SQL Server

This is a very important question and you better be able to answer it if consider yourself a DBA. SQL Server books online is the best place to read about SQL Server architecture. Read up the chapter dedicated to SQL Server Architecture.

What is lock escalation?

Lock escalation is the process of converting a lot of low level locks (like row locks, page locks) into higher level locks (like table locks). Every lock is a memory structure too many locks would mean, more memory being occupied by locks. To prevent this from happening, SQL Server escalates the many fine-grain locks to fewer coarse-grain locks. Lock escalation threshold was definable in SQL Server 6.5, but from SQL Server 7.0 onwards it's dynamically managed by SQL Server.

What's the difference between DELETE TABLE and TRUNCATE TABLE commands?

DELETE TABLE is a logged operation, so the deletion of each row gets logged in the transaction log, which makes it slow. TRUNCATE TABLE also deletes all the rows in a table, but it won't log the deletion of each row, instead it logs the deallocation of the data pages of the table, which makes it faster. Of course, TRUNCATE TABLE can be rolled back.

Explain the storage models of OLAP

Check out MOLAP, ROLAP and HOLAP in SQL Server books online for more infomation.

What are the new features introduced in SQL Server 2000 (or the latest release of SQL Server at the time of your interview)? What changed between the previous version of SQL Server and the current version?

This question is generally asked to see how current is your knowledge. Generally there is a section in the beginning of the books online titled "What's New", which has all such information. Of course, reading just that is not enough, you should have tried those things to better answer the questions. Also check out the section titled "Backward Compatibility" in books online which talks about the changes that have taken place in the new version.

What are constraints? Explain different types of constraints.

Constraints enable the RDBMS enforce the integrity of the database automatically, without needing you to create triggers, rule or defaults.

Types of constraints: NOT NULL, CHECK, UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY

For an explanation of these constraints see books online for the pages titled: "Constraints" and "CREATE TABLE", "ALTER TABLE"

Whar is an index? What are the types of indexes? How many clustered indexes can be created on a table? I create a separate index on each column of a table. what are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?

Indexes in SQL Server are similar to the indexes in books. They help SQL Server retrieve the data quicker.

Indexes are of two types. Clustered indexes and non-clustered indexes. When you craete a clustered index on a table, all the rows in the table are stored in the order of the clustered index key. So, there can be only one clustered index per table. Non-clustered indexes have their own storage separate from the table data storage. Non-clustered indexes are stored as B-tree structures (so do clustered indexes), with the leaf level nodes having the index key and it's row locater. The row located could be the RID or the Clustered index key, depending up on the absence or presence of clustered index on the table.

If you create an index on each column of a table, it improves the query performance, as the query optimizer can choose from all the existing indexes to come up with an efficient execution plan. At the same t ime, data modification operations (such as INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) will become slow, as every time data changes in the table, all the indexes need to be updated. Another disadvantage is that, indexes need disk space, the more indexes you have, more disk space is used.

Database administration

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What is RAID and what are different types of RAID configurations?

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, used to provide fault tolerance to database servers. There are six RAID levels 0 through 5 offering different levels of performance, fault tolerance. MSDN has some information about RAID levels and for detailed information, check out the RAID advisory board's homepage

What are the steps you will take to improve performance of a poor performing query?

This is a very open ended question and there could be a lot of reasons behind the poor performance of a query. But some general issues that you could talk about would be: No indexes, table scans, missing or out of date statistics, blocking, excess recompilations of stored procedures, procedures and triggers without SET NOCOUNT ON, poorly written query with unnecessarily complicated joins, too much normalization, excess usage of cursors and temporary tables.

Some of the tools/ways that help you troubleshooting performance problems are: SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON, SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON, SET STATISTICS IO ON, SQL Server Profiler, Windows NT /2000 Performance monitor, Graphical execution plan in Query Analyzer.

Download the white paper on performance tuning SQL Server from Microsoft web site. Don't forget to check out sql-server-performance.com

What are the steps you will take, if you are tasked with securing an SQL Server?

Again this is another open ended question. Here are some things you could talk about: Preferring NT authentication, using server, databse and application roles to control access to the data, securing the physical database files using NTFS permissions, using an unguessable SA password, restricting physical access to the SQL Server, renaming the Administrator account on the SQL Server computer, disabling the Guest account, enabling auditing, using multiprotocol encryption, setting up SSL, setting up firewalls, isolating SQL Server from the web server etc.

Read the white paper on SQL Server security from Microsoft website. Also check out My SQL Server security best practices

What is a deadlock and what is a live lock? How will you go about resolving deadlocks?

Deadlock is a situation when two processes, each having a lock on one piece of data, attempt to acquire a lock on the other's piece. Each process would wait indefinitely for the other to release the lock, unless one of the user processes is terminated. SQL Server detects deadlocks and terminates one user's process.

A livelock is one, where a request for an exclusive lock is repeatedly denied because a series of overlapping shared locks keeps interfering. SQL Server detects the situation after four denials and refuses further shared locks. A livelock also occurs when read transactions monopolize a table or page, forcing a write transaction to wait indefinitely.

Check out SET DEADLOCK_PRIORITY and "Minimizing Deadlocks" in SQL Server books online. Also check out the article Q169960 from Microsoft knowledge base.

What is blocking and how would you troubleshoot it?

Blocking happens when one connection from an application holds a lock and a second connection requires a conflicting lock type. This forces the second connection to wait, blocked on the first.

Read up the following topics in SQL Server books online: Understanding and avoiding blocking, Coding efficient transactions.

Explain CREATE DATABASE syntax

Many of us are used to creating databases from the Enterprise Manager or by just issuing the command: CREATE DATABAE MyDB. But what if you have to create a database with two filegroups, one on drive C and the other on drive D with log on drive E with an initial size of 600 MB and with a growth factor of 15%? That's why being a DBA you should be familiar with the CREATE DATABASE syntax. Check out SQL Server books online for more information.

How to restart SQL Server in single user mode? How to start SQL Server in minimal configuration mode?

SQL Server can be started from command line, using the SQLSERVR.EXE. This EXE has some very important parameters with which a DBA should be familiar with. -m is used for starting SQL Server in single user mode and -f is used to start the SQL Server in minimal confuguration mode. Check out SQL Server books online for more parameters and their explanations.

As a part of your job, what are the DBCC commands that you commonly use for database maintenance?

DBCC CHECKDB, DBCC CHECKTABLE, DBCC CHECKCATALOG, DBCC CHECKALLOC, DBCC SHOWCONTIG, DBCC SHRINKDATABASE, DBCC SHRINKFILE etc. But there are a whole load of DBCC commands which are very useful for DBAs. Check out SQL Server books online for more information.

What are statistics, under what circumstances they go out of date, how do you update them?

Statistics determine the selectivity of the indexes. If an indexed column has unique values then the selectivity of that index is more, as opposed to an index with non-unique values. Query optimizer uses these indexes in determining whether to choose an index or not while executing a query.

Some situations under which you should update statistics:
1) If there is significant change in the key values in the index
2) If a large amount of data in an indexed column has been added, changed, or removed (that is, if the distribution of key values has changed), or the table has been truncated using the TRUNCATE TABLE statement and then repopulated
3) Database is upgraded from a previous version

Look up SQL Server books online for the following commands: UPDATE STATISTICS, STATS_DATE, DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS, CREATE STATISTICS, DROP STATISTICS, sp_autostats, sp_createstats, sp_updatestats

What are the different ways of moving data/databases between servers and databases in SQL Server?

There are lots of options available, you have to choose your option depending upon your requirements. Some of the options you have are: BACKUP/RESTORE, dettaching and attaching databases, replication, DTS, BCP, logshipping, INSERT...SELECT, SELECT...INTO, creating INSERT scripts to generate data.

Explian different types of BACKUPs avaialabe in SQL Server? Given a particular scenario, how would you go about choosing a backup plan?

Types of backups you can create in SQL Sever 7.0+ are Full database backup, differential database backup, transaction log backup, filegroup backup. Check out the BACKUP and RESTORE commands in SQL Server books online. Be prepared to write the commands in your interview. Books online also has information on detailed backup/restore architecture and when one should go for a particular kind of backup.

What is database replicaion? What are the different types of replication you can set up in SQL Server?

Replication is the process of copying/moving data between databases on the same or different servers. SQL Server supports the following types of replication scenarios:

Snapshot replication
Transactional replication (with immediate updating subscribers, with queued updating subscribers)
Merge replication

See SQL Server books online for indepth coverage on replication. Be prepared to explain how different replication agents function, what are the main system tables used in replication etc.

How to determine the service pack currently installed on SQL Server?

The global variable @@Version stores the build number of the sqlservr.exe, which is used to determine the service pack installed. To know more about this process visit SQL Server service packs and versions.

Database programming

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What are cursors? Explain different types of cursors. What are the disadvantages of cursors? How can you avoid cursors?

Cursors allow row-by-row prcessing of the resultsets.

Types of cursors: Static, Dynamic, Forward-only, Keyset-driven. See books online for more information.

Disadvantages of cursors: Each time you fetch a row from the cursor, it results in a network roundtrip, where as a normal SELECT query makes only one rowundtrip, however large the resultset is. Cursors are also costly because they require more resources and temporary storage (results in more IO operations). Furthere, there are restrictions on the SELECT statements that can be used with some types of cursors.

Most of the times, set based operations can be used instead of cursors. Here is an example:

If you have to give a flat hike to your employees using the following criteria:

Salary between 30000 and 40000 -- 5000 hike
Salary between 40000 and 55000 -- 7000 hike
Salary between 55000 and 65000 -- 9000 hike

In this situation many developers tend to use a cursor, determine each employee's salary and update his salary according to the above formula. But the same can be achieved by multiple update statements or can be combined in a single UPDATE statement as shown below:

UPDATE tbl_emp SET salary =
CASE WHEN salary BETWEEN 30000 AND 40000 THEN salary + 5000
WHEN salary BETWEEN 40000 AND 55000 THEN salary + 7000
WHEN salary BETWEEN 55000 AND 65000 THEN salary + 10000
END

Another situation in which developers tend to use cursors: You need to call a stored procedure when a column in a particular row meets certain condition. You don't have to use cursors for this. This can be achieved using WHILE loop, as long as there is a unique key to identify each row. For examples of using WHILE loop for row by row processing, check out the 'My code library' section of my site or search for WHILE.

Write down the general syntax for a SELECT statements covering all the options.

Here's the basic syntax: (Also checkout SELECT in books online for advanced syntax).

SELECT select_list
[INTO new_table_]
FROM table_source
[WHERE search_condition]
[GROUP BY group_by_expression]
[HAVING search_condition]
[ORDER BY order_expression [ASC | DESC] ]

What is a join and explain different types of joins.

Joins are used in queries to explain how different tables are related. Joins also let you select data from a table depending upon data from another table.

Types of joins: INNER JOINs, OUTER JOINs, CROSS JOINs. OUTER JOINs are further classified as LEFT OUTER JOINS, RIGHT OUTER JOINS and FULL OUTER JOINS.

For more information see pages from books online titled: "Join Fundamentals" and "Using Joins".

Can you have a nested transaction?

Yes, very much. Check out BEGIN TRAN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK, SAVE TRAN and @@TRANCOUNT

What is an extended stored procedure? Can you instantiate a COM object by using T-SQL?

An extended stored procedure is a function within a DLL (written in a programming language like C, C++ using Open Data Services (ODS) API) that can be called from T-SQL, just the way we call normal stored procedures using the EXEC statement. See books online to learn how to create extended stored procedures and how to add them to SQL Server.

Yes, you can instantiate a COM (written in languages like VB, VC++) object from T-SQL by using sp_OACreate stored procedure. Also see books online for sp_OAMethod, sp_OAGetProperty, sp_OASetProperty, sp_OADestroy. For an example of creating a COM object in VB and calling it from T-SQL, see 'My code library' section of this site.

What is the system function to get the current user's user id?

USER_ID(). Also check out other system functions like USER_NAME(), SYSTEM_USER, SESSION_USER, CURRENT_USER, USER, SUSER_SID(), HOST_NAME().

What are triggers? How many triggers you can have on a table? How to invoke a trigger on demand?

Triggers are special kind of stored procedures that get executed automatically when an INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE operation takes place on a table.

In SQL Server 6.5 you could define only 3 triggers per table, one for INSERT, one for UPDATE and one for DELETE. From SQL Server 7.0 onwards, this restriction is gone, and you could create multiple triggers per each action. But in 7.0 there's no way to control the order in which the triggers fire. In SQL Server 2000 you could specify which trigger fires first or fires last using sp_settriggerorder

Triggers can't be invoked on demand. They get triggered only when an associated action (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) happens on the table on which they are defined.

Triggers are generally used to implement business rules, auditing. Triggers can also be used to extend the referential integrity checks, but wherever possible, use constraints for this purpose, instead of triggers, as constraints are much faster.

Till SQL Server 7.0, triggers fire only after the data modification operation happens. So in a way, they are called post triggers. But in SQL Server 2000 you could create pre triggers also. Search SQL Server 2000 books online for INSTEAD OF triggers.

Also check out books online for 'inserted table', 'deleted table' and COLUMNS_UPDATED()

There is a trigger defined for INSERT operations on a table, in an OLTP system. The trigger is written to instantiate a COM object and pass the newly insterted rows to it for some custom processing. What do you think of this implementation? Can this be implemented better?

Instantiating COM objects is a time consuming process and since you are doing it from within a trigger, it slows down the data insertion process. Same is the case with sending emails from triggers. This scenario can be better implemented by logging all the necessary data into a separate table, and have a job which periodically checks this table and does the needful.

What is a self join? Explain it with an example.

Self join is just like any other join, except that two instances of the same table will be joined in the query. Here is an example: Employees table which contains rows for normal employees as well as managers. So, to find out the managers of all the employees, you need a self join.

CREATE TABLE emp
(
empid int,
mgrid int,
empname char(10)
)

INSERT emp SELECT 1,2,'Vyas'
INSERT emp SELECT 2,3,'Mohan'
INSERT emp SELECT 3,NULL,'Shobha'
INSERT emp SELECT 4,2,'Shridhar'
INSERT emp SELECT 5,2,'Sourabh'

SELECT t1.empname [Employee], t2.empname [Manager]
FROM emp t1, emp t2
WHERE t1.mgrid = t2.empid

Here's an advanced query using a LEFT OUTER JOIN that even returns the employees without managers (super bosses)

SELECT t1.empname [Employee], COALESCE(t2.empname, 'No manager') [Manager]
FROM emp t1
LEFT OUTER JOIN
emp t2
ON
t1.mgrid = t2.empid

Given an employee table, how would you find out the second highest salary?

For a solution see the 'My code library' section of this site.

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com.

Thank you
Ram

TESTOBJECT MODEL - QTP

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:36:00 +0000

Test object Model is a set of object types or Classes that QuickTest uses to represents the objects in our application.

A test object class comprises of a list of properties that can individually (uniquely) identify objects of that class and a set of appropriate methods that QuickTest can record for it.

A test object is an object that QuickTest creates in the test to correspond to (represent) the actual object in the application. QuickTest uses the stored information about the object during the run session to identify and check the object.

A run-time object is the real (actual) object in the application or Web site on which methods are performed during the run session.

Properties and methods of objects:

The property set for each test object is created and maintained by QuickTest. The property set for each run-time object is created and maintained by the object architect (creator) (Microsoft for Internet Explorer objects, Netscape for Netscape objects).

Similarly, methods of test objects are methods that QuickTest recognizes and records when they are executed (performed) on an object while we are recording, and that QuickTest executes when the test or component runs. Methods of Run-time object are the methods of the object in the application as defined by the object architect (creator). We can access and execute run-time object methods using the Object property.

Some important points to remember about methods and properties :

Each test object method we execute (perform) while recording is recorded as a separate step in the test. When we run the test, QuickTest executes (performs) the recorded test object method on the run-time object.
Properties of test object are captured from object while recording. QuickTest uses the values of these properties to identify runtime objects in the application during a run session.
Property values of objects in the application may change .To make the test object property values match the property values of the run-time object, we can modify test object properties manually while designing the test or component or using SetTOProperty statements during a run session. We can also use regular expressions to identify property values.
We can view or modify the test object property values that are stored with the test or component in the Object Properties or Object Repository dialog box.
We can view the syntax of the test object methods as well as the run-time methods of any object on our desktop using the Methods tab of the Object Spy.
We can retrieve or modify property values of the TEST OBJECT during the run session by adding GetTOProperty and SetTOProperty statements in the Keyword View or Expert View. We can retrieve property values of the RUNTIME OBJECT during the run session by adding GetROProperty statements.

If the available test object methods or properties for an object are not sufficient or they do not provide the functionality we need, we can access the internal methods and properties of any run-time object using the Object property. We can also use the attribute object property to identify Web objects in the application according to user-defined properties.

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com
Thank you
Ram

Testing Process - QTP

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:19:00 +0000

QTP (Quick Test Professional) lets you create tests and business components by recording operations as you perform them in your application.

Test - A compilation of steps organized into one or more actions, which we can use to verify that our application performs as expected. A test is composed of actions (3 kinds of actions are there in QTP Non-reusable action, Reusable action and External action).

1) First step is Planning Before starting to build a test, you should plan it and prepare the required infrastructure. For example, determine the functionality you want to test, short tests that check specific functions of the application or complete site.Decide how you want to organize your object repositories.

2) Second step in QTP is Creating Tests or Components

User can create a test or component by the following way
a) Either recording a session on your application or Web site. As we navigate through the application or site, QuickTest graphically displays each step we perform as a row in the Keyword View. The Documentation column of the Keyword View also displays a description of each step in easy-to-understand sentences. A step is something that causes or makes a change in your site or application, such as clicking a link or image, or submitting a data form.

b) Build an object repository and use these objects to add steps manually in the Keyword View or Expert View. We can then modify your test or component with special testing options and/or with programming statements.

3) Third step is Inserting checkpoints into your test or component. A checkpoint is a verification point that compares a recent value for a specified property with the expected value for that property. This enables you to identify whether the Web site or application is functioning correctly.

4) Fourth step is Broaden the scope of your test or component by replacing fixed values with parameters.

To check how your application performs the same operations with different data you can parameterize your test or component.

When you parameterize your test or component, QuickTest substitutes the fixed values in your test or component with parameters

Each run session that uses a different set of parameterized data is called an iteration.

We can also use output values to extract data from our test or component. An output value is a value retrieved during the run session and entered into the Data Table or saved as a variable or a parameter. We can subsequently use this output value as input data in your test or component.

We can use many functional testing features of QuickTest to improve your test or component and/or add programming statements to achieve more complex testing goals.

5) Fifth step is running the test

After creating test or component, we run it.
Run test or component to check the site or application.

When we run the test or component, QuickTest connects to your Web site or application and performs each operation in a test or component, checking any text strings, objects, or tables you specified. If we parameterized the test with Data Table parameters, QuickTest repeats the test (or specific actions in your test) for each set of data values we defined.
Run the test or component to debug it.

We can control the run session to identify and eliminate defects in the test or component. We can use the

Step Into,
Step Over,

And Step Outcommands to run a test or component step by step. We can also set breakpoints to pause the test or component at pre-determined points. We can view the value of variables in the test or component each time it stops at a breakpoint in the Debug Viewer.

6) Sixth step is analyzing the results

After we run test or component, we can view the results.
View the results in the Results window.
After running the test or component, we can view the results of the run in the Test Results window. We can view a summary of the results as well as a detailed report.

Report defects identified during a run session.
If Quality Center is installed, we can report the defects fond out to a database. We can instruct QuickTest to automatically report each failed step in the test or component, or we can report them manually from the Test Results window.

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com
Thank you
Ram

QTP Tutorial 1

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 07:22:00 +0000

Anatomy of QTP: –
Ad-inn Manager: – It is a feature provided by qtp used for making the qtp compatible with a specified environment by default the QTP provides 3 add-ins

Visual Basic
Activex
Web

Apart from these 3 add-ins qtp is always compatible with standard windows environment QTP serene is divided in to 5 parts

Test pane area
Active Screen
Data table
Debug weaver pane
Tool option

1. Test pane: – It is an area provided by QTP used for viewing the text script. It also allows the user to do any kind of modifications on the text script.
Test pane represents the script in 2 ways.

· Expert View

· Keyword View

Expert View: – Expert view represents the script in vb script format.
Keyword View: – It is represents the script using a graphical user interface which is divided in to 4 Parts.

Item
Operation
Value
Documentation

2. Active screen: –It is a feature provided by QTP which holds the snap shots of application state of each and every script statement.
Features:–
It is used for understand the script easily.
It is used for enhancing the script easily.

3. Data Table: – It is also called as formula one sheet developed by the 3rd party and integrated with the QTP.
Features:–
- It is used for holding the test data.
- It provides a facility to import the test data from different data sources like database, excel sheet or flat file.
- It allows the user to enter the data and modify the data directly in it.
- It isolates the text script from the data source.

QTP maintain 2 copies of data tables

· Design time datatable

· Run time datatable

4. Debug Viewer pane: – It is used for viewing, modifying, or setting the current values of the variables and command tabs.

5. Too potion: – The options that are available in menu bars and tools are known as tool options.

Recording and running
Record and run settings:– It is a feature provided by QTP used for making the QTP aware on which applications a test engineer is about to perform record and run operations.

A test engineer has to compulsorily use this option for every new test. For doing the same this feature has provided 2 Options.

· Record and run on any open windows application

· Record and run on these applications

Navigations

Activate the menu item test
Select the option record and run settings
Select one of the following action
Record and run on any open windows application
Record and run on these applications
If at all the second option is selected click on add button
Browse the desire file to be added
Click on ok
Click on apply and ok.

Operational Overview of recording: During recording the QTP will be doing the following things.

· Every user action is converted in to script statement

· The corresponding object information is stored in the object repository.

Operational Overview of running:

QTP tries to understand the script statement
After understanding what action to be performed or which object is realized that it needs to identify that object.
In order to identify the object it needs the corresponding information.
For that it will go to the object repository and search for the information.
If at all the information is found using that information it will try to identify the object.
If at all the object is identified then it will perform the action

Types of Recording Modes

Context sensitive recording mode: – It is used for recording the operations perform on the standard GUI objects.
Analog Recording: – It is a special recording mode provided by QTP to record the continuous actions performed on the application.
Low level recording: – It is used for recording at least minimum operations on the applications which are developed with known supported environment.

Navigation

Keep the tool under normal recording mode
Activate the menu item text
Select the option analog recording
Select one of the following actions.
Record relative to the screen.
Record relative to the following window.
If at all the second option is selected specify the window title using the hand icon C
Click on start analog record button.

OBJECT REPOSITORY

It is storage place where one can store the objects information and it also acts as a interface between the text script and the AUT in order to identify the object during execution.

Types Of Object Repository
There are 2 types of object repositories.

1. Per-Action Object Repository:–
For each and every action in a test the QTP will create and manage the individual repository.
Dis-Advantage: Difficult to maintenance

2. Shared Repository:–
It is a Common place where one can store the objects information and it can be associated to multiple tests.
Advantage: Easy to maintenance and can be used by multiple test case
Note: The shared repository has to be created manually and associated manually to the test.

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com
Thank you
Ram

Software Test Life Cycle

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:07:00 +0000

Software testing life cycle identifies what test activities to carry out to accomplish quality assurance process in a software development project.

There are different kinds of software development life cycle such as Waterfall, Spiral, Agile, and many others. Software testing has its own life cycle that intersects with every stage of the SDLC either it is Waterfall, Spiral or Agile. However, SDLC varies from one to another based on size of project, test team, test in Scope/out of scope, and code release date (how frequently). So, knowledge about some of the major phase in STLC, quality assurance activities during phases and role of a tester, makes you as a tester always ready to accomplish your task with a mark. This picture describes one of widely used STLC phases.

Generally STLC for a single test cycle consists of phases:

1) Planning, 2) Analysis, 3) Design, 4) Initial Testing 5) Testing Cycles, 6) Final Testing and Implementation and 7) Post release

Planning:

• High level test plan

• Identify review process, Metrics

• Bug reporting procedures

• Acceptance criteria for QA

• schedule

Analysis Phase:

• Develop Test Case format , Validation Matrix

• Develop, and plan Test Cycles matrices and time lines

• Begin writing Test Cases based on Functional Validation matrix

• Map baseline data to test cases to business requirements

• Identify Automation, Manual and Types of testing ,

• Test environment, automation system setup.

Design:

• Test -plan(ning) review and verify.

• Review matrix (coverage).

• Continue working on Test Cases.(update, new )

• Finalize test case selection for each cycle for manual run and automation.

Initial Testing:

• Complete all plans, Test Case, scripting

• Unit test (Automated?)

Test Cycle:

• Test Cycle 1, run first set of test

• Report bugs - Triage(bug verification)- Bug fixes - Regression

• Add test cases as required

• Test Cycle 2, 3 ...

Final Testing and Implementation:

• Code Freeze

• Run Test cases for including performance level .

• Communicate defect tracking metrics.

• Regression

• Documents.

Post Release:

• Evaluation meeting - lesson learned

• Prepare final Defect Report and metrics. Develop strategies to prevent similar problems in future project.

• Milestones for improvements

• Environment clean-up, clean (tag and archive tests and data for that release) restore test machines to baseline for next test cycle.

Final summary:

What is testing?

Testing is the process of showing the presence of defects. Testing is the process of exercising or evaluating a system or system component by manual or automated means to verify that it satisfies specified requirements, or to identify differences between expected and actual results

Process of testing:

Testing = Verification + Validation

• Verification: building the product right.

• Validation: building the right product.

• A broad and continuous activity throughout the software life cycle.

• An information gathering activity to enable the evaluation of our work, e.g.

• Does it meet the users requirements?

• What are the limitations?

• What are the risks of releasing it.

Software Testing Life Cycle

Phase	Activities	Outcome
Planning	Create high level test plan	Test plan, Refined Specification
Analysis	Create detailed test plan, Functional Validation Matrix, test cases	Revised Test Plan, Functional validation matrix, test cases
Design	test cases are revised; select which test cases to automate	revised test cases, test data sets, sets, risk assessment sheet
Construction	scripting of test cases to automate,	test procedures/Scripts, Drivers, test results, Bugreports.
Testing ycles	complete testing cycles	Test results, Bug Reports
Functional Testing	execute remaining stress and performance tests, complete documentation	Test results and different metrics on test efforts
Post Implementation	Evaluate testing processes	Plan for improvement of testing process.

If you have any queries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you

Ram

Most Frequently Asked Questions

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 15:55:00 +0000

Most Frequently Asked Questions

What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Tell me about yourself.
What are your team-player qualities? Give examples.
Of the courses you have had at college which courses have you enjoyed the most?
What is your GPA? How do you feel about it? Does it reflect your abilities?
How have your educational and work experiences prepared you for this position?
What work experiences have been most valuable to you and why?
What have the experiences on your resume taught you about managing and working with people?
Of the hobbies and interests listed on your resume what is your favorite and tell me why?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
What goals have you set for yourself? How are you planning to achieve them?
To what do you owe your present success?
Why should I hire you?
What makes you think you can handle this position?
What is your most significant accomplishment to date?
Why do you want to work here?
Describe a leadership role of yours and tell why you committed your time to it.
In a particular leadership role you had, what was your greatest challenge?
Give me an example of an idea that has come to you and what you did with it?
Give me an example of a problem you solved and the process you used?
Give me an example of the most creative project that you have worked on.
Tell me about a project you initiated?
Describe the project or situation that best demonstrates your analytical abilities?
Since attending college, what is the toughest decision that you have had to make?
Tell me about your most difficult decision and how did you go about making it?
What types of situations put you under pressure, and how do you deal with pressure?
Give me a situation in which you failed, and how you handled it?
Why are you interested in our organization?
What type of position are you seeking?
Where do you think your interest in this career comes from?
What industry besides this one are you looking into?
Why have you chosen this particular profession?
What interests you about this job?
What challenges are you looking for in a position?
What can you contribute to this company?
What motivates you?
What turns you off?
If I asked the people who know you well to describe you, what three words would they use?
If I asked the people who know you for one reason why I shouldn't hire you what would they say?
When you take on a project do you like to attack the project in a group of individually?
Describe the type of manager you prefer.
Tell me about a team project of which you are particularly proud and your contribution?
Describe a situation where you had to work with someone who was difficult, how did you handle it?
What type of work environment appeals to you most?
With which other companies are you interviewing?
What charactersitics do you think are important for this position?
Why do you feel that this company will be a career for you rather than a job?
Name two management skills that you think you have?
What characteristics are most important in a good manager? How have you displayed one of them?
Why did you choose this college and how did you arrive at this decision?
What factors did you consider in choosing your major?
Describe how your favorite course has contributed your career interests?
Since you have been at college, what is it that you are proudest of?
How have you changed personally since starting college?
What has been your greatest challenge?
If you could change a decision you made while at college what would you change and why?
Why did you choose the campus involvements you did? What did you gain? What did you contribute?

Questions You Can Ask the Interviewer:

Ask about the information you researched.
Describe my job duties.
Is this a newly created position?
What are the companies short and long term goals?
What do you like most about working for this company?
What is a typical day like for you?
To whom would I report?
Whom will I supervise?
Tell me about the training program I will experience.
What is the company's promotional policy?
With whom will I be working most closely?
When can I expect to hear from you?

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com
Thank you Ram

Interview Questions Part 9

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:03:00 +0000

Testing Questions 9

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

Interview Questions Part 8

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 14:08:00 +0000

How to make arguments optional in a function?
This is not possible as default VBS doesn't support this. Instead you can pass a blank scring and have a default value if arguments r not required.
How to add a text checkpoint to your test to check whether 'welcome' is displayed in your welcome page.
1 Locate the page where you want to add a text checkpoint.

2 Create a text checkpoint.

In the Active Screen, under your page highlight the text welcome. Right-click the highlighted text and choose Insert Text Checkpoint. The Text Checkpoint Properties dialog box opens.When Checked Text appears in the list box, the Constant field displays the text string you highlighted. This is the text QuickTest looks for when running the test.Click OK to accept the default settings in this dialog box.QuickTest adds the text checkpoint to your test. It is displayed in the Keyword View as a checkpoint operation on your welcome page3 Save the test.

How to Running and Analyzing a Test with Checkpoints?
1 Expand the test and review your test.Choose View > Expand All or use the * shortcut key on your number keypad.

2 Start running your test.Click Run or choose Test > Run. The Run dialog box opens. Ensure that New run results folder is selected. Accept the default results folder name. Click OK. When the test run is completed, the Test Results window opens.

3 View the test results.When QuickTest finishes running the test, the Test Results window opens. The test result should be Passed, indicating that all checkpoints passed. If one or more checkpoints had failed, the test result would be Failed.

4 View the results of the page checkpoint.In the Details pane, you can review the details of the page checkpoint, which lists the items checked.

5 View the results of the table checkpoint.In the Details pane, you can review the details of the table checkpoint. You can also review the values of the table cells (cell values that were checked are displayed in black; cell values that were not checked are displayed in gray).

6 View the results of the standard checkpoint.In the Details pane, you can review the details of the standard checkpoint, which lists the properties that were checked and their values. The checkpoint passed because the actual values of the checked properties match the expected values.

7 View the results of the text checkpoint.In the Details pane, you can review the details of the text checkpoint. The checkpoint passed because the actual text matches the expected text.

8 Close the Test Results window. Choose File > Exit.

How to Defining a Data Table Parameter for QTP?
1 Start QuickTest and open the Checkpoint test.

2 Save the test as Parameter.

3 Confirm that the Active Screen option is enabled.

4 Confirm that the Data Table option is enabled.

5 Select the text to parameterize.6 Set the parameterization properties.

How to add a runtime parameter to a datasheet?
DataTable.LocalSheetThe following example uses the LocalSheet property to return the local sheet of the run-time Data Table in order to add a parameter (column) to it.MyParam=DataTable.LocalSheet.AddParameter("Time", "5:45")
How to change the run-time value of a property for an object?
SetTOProperty changes the property values used to identify an object during the test run. Only properties that are included in the test object description can be set

How to retrieve the property of an object?
using "GetRoProperty".

How to open any application during Scripting?
SystemUtil , object used to open and close applications and processes during a run session.(a) A SystemUtil.Run statement is automatically added to your test when you run an application from the Start menu or the Run dialog box while recording a testE.g : SystemUtil.Run "Notepad.exe" SystemUtil.CloseDescendentProcesses ( Closes all the processes opened by QTP )

How to convert a String to an integer?
CInt()---> a conversion function available.

Inserting a Call to Action is not Importing all columns in Datatable of globalsheet. Why?
Inserting a call to action will only Import the columns of the Action called

Differentiate the two Object Repository Types of QTP.
Object repository is used to store all the objects in the application being tested.2 types of oject repositoy per action and shared. In shared repository only one centralised repository for all the tests. where as in per action.for each test a separate per action repostory is created.

What the differences are and best practical application of each.
Per Action: For Each Action, one Object Repository is created. Shared : One Object Repository is used by entire application

Explain what the difference between Shared Repository and Per_Action Repository
Shared Repository: Entire application uses one Object Repository , that similar to Global GUI Map file in WinRunner Per Action: For each Action ,one Object Repository is created, like GUI map file per test in WinRunner

Have you ever written a compiled module? If yes tell me about some of the functions that you wrote.
I Used the functions for Capturing the dynamic data during runtime. Function used for Capturing Desktop, browser and pages.

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

Thank you
Ram

Interview Questions Part 7

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:54:00 +0000

What is a Run-Time Data Table? Where can I find and view this table?
-In QTP, there is data table used , which is used at runtime.-In QTP, select the option View->Data tabke.-This is basically an excel file, which is stored in the folder of the test created, its name is Default.xls by default.

How to do the scripting. Is there any inbuilt functions in QTP as in QTP-S. Whatz the difference between them? how to handle script issues?
Yes, there's an in-built functionality called "Step Generator" in Insert->Step->Step Generator -F7, which will generate the scripts as u enter the appropriate steps.

What is the difference between check point and output value.
An outPut value is a value captured during the test run and entered in the run-time but to a specified location. EX:-Location in Data Table[Global sheet / local sheet]

Types of properties that Quick Test learns while recording?
(a) Mandatory (b) Assistive . In addition to recording the mandatory and assistive properties specified in the Object Identification dialog box, QuickTest can also record a backup ordinal identifier for each test object. The ordinal identifier assigns the object a numerical value that indicates its order relative to other objects with an otherwise identical description (objects that have the same values for all properties specified in the mandatory and assistive property lists). This ordered value enables QuickTest to create a unique description when the mandatory and assistive properties are not sufficient to do so.

Differences between QTP & Winrunner?
(a) QTP is object bases Scripting ( VBS) where Winrunner is TSL (C based) Scripting.(b) QTP supports ".NET" application Automation not available in Winrunner(c) QTP has "Active Screen" support which captures the application, not available in WR.(d) QTP has "Data Table" to store script values , variables which WR does not have.(e) Using a “point and click” capability you can easily interface with objects, their definitions and create checkpoints after having recorded a script – without having to navigate back to that location in your application like you have to with WinRunner. This greatly speeds up script development.

Few basic questions on commonly used Excel VBA functions.
common functions are:Coloring the cellAuto fit cellsetting navigation from link in one cell to other saving

How does Parameterization and Data-Driving relate to each other in QTP?
To datadrive we have to parameterize.i.e. we have to make the constant value as parameter, so that in each iteraration(cycle) it takes a value that is supplied in run-time datatable. Through parameterization only we can drive a transaction(action) with different sets of data. You know running the script with the same set of data several times is not suggestable, & it's also of no use.

What is the difference between Call to Action and Copy Action.?
Call to Action : The changes made in Call to Action , will be reflected in the orginal action( from where the script is called).But where as in Copy Action , the changes made in the script ,will not effect the original script(Action)

How to verify the Cursor focus of a certain field?
Use "focus" property of "GetRoProperty" method"

If you have any quarries/feed back catch me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

Interview Questions Part 6

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:44:00 +0000

How to Import data from a ".xls" file to Data table during Runtime.
Datatable.Import "...XLS file name..."DataTable.ImportSheet(FileName, SheetSource, SheetDest) DataTable.ImportSheet "C:\name.xls" ,1 ,"name"

How to export data present in Datatable to an ".xls" file?
DataTable.Export "....xls file name..."
Syntact for how to call one script from another? and Syntax to call one "Action" in another?
RunAction ActionName, [IterationMode , IterationRange , Parameters]Here the actions becomes reusable on making this call to any Action.IterationRange String Not always required. Indicates the rows for which action iterations will be performed. Valid only when the IterationMode is rngIterations. Enter the row range (i.e. "1-7"), or enter rngAll to run iterations on all rows.If the action called by the RunAction statement includes an ExitAction statement, the RunAction statement can return the value of the ExitAction's RetVal argument.

How to export QTP results to an ".xls" file?
By default it creates an "XML" file and displays the results

How the exception handling can be done using QTP
It can be done Using the Recovery Scenario Manager which provides a wizard that gudies you through the process of defining a recovery scenario. FYI.. The wizard could be accesed in QTP> Tools-> Recovery Scenario Manager.

How many types of Actions are there in QTP?
There are three kinds of actions:non-reusable action—an action that can be called only in the test with which it is stored, and can be called only once. reusable action—an action that can be called multiple times by the test with which it is stored (the local test) as well as by other tests.external action—a reusable action stored with another test. External actions are read-only in the calling test, but you can choose to use a local, editable copy of the Data Table information for the external action.

Analyzing the Checpoint results
Standard Checpoint :By adding standard checkpoints to your tests or components, you can compare the expected values of object properties to the object's current values during a run session. If the results do not match, the checkpoint fails.

How to handle Run-time errors?
On Error Resume Next : causes execution to continue with the statement immediately following the statement that caused the run-time error, or with the statement immediately following the most recent call out of the procedure containing the On Error Resume Next statement. This allows execution to continue despite a run-time error. You can then build the error-handling routine inline within the procedure.Using "Err" object msgbox "Error no: " & " " & Err.Number & " " & Err.description & " " & Err.Source & Err.HelpContext

What are the different scripting languages you could use when working with QTP ?
Visual Basic (VB),XML,JavaScript,Java,HTML

How to handle dynamic objects in QTP?
QTP has a unique feature called Smart Object Identification/recognition. QTP generally identifies an object by matching its test object and run time object properties. QTP may fail to recognise the dynamic objects whose properties change during run time. Hence it has an option of enabling Smart Identification, wherein it can identify the objects even if their properties changes during run time. Check this out-If QuickTest is unable to find any object that matches the recorded object description, or if it finds more than one object that fits the description, then QuickTest ignores the recorded description, and uses the Smart Identification mechanism to try to identify the object. While the Smart Identification mechanism is more complex, it is more flexible, and thus, if configured logically, a Smart Identification definition can probably help QuickTest identify an object, if it is present, even when the recorded description fails.The Smart Identification mechanism uses two types of properties:Base filter properties—The most fundamental properties of a particular test object class; those whose values cannot be changed without changing the essence of the original object. For example, if a Web link's tag was changed from to any other value, you could no longer call it the same object. Optional filter properties—Other properties that can help identify objects of a particular class as they are unlikely to change on a regular basis, but which can be ignored if they are no longer applicable.

Explain the keyword createobject with an example.
Creates and returns a reference to an Automation objectsyntax: CreateObject(servername.typename [, location])Argumentsservername:Required. The name of the application providing the object.typename : Required. The type or class of the object to create.location : Optional. The name of the network server where the object is to be created.

If you have any quarries/feed back send me mail on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

Interview Questions Part 5

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:34:00 +0000

Q. What are test objects?
Test objects are objects created and maintained by QTP in its object repository. Each test objecthas a name and a set of properties to uniquely identify the actual object in the application.

Q. how does QTP identifies the objects during the script run?
During script run QuickTest searches for a run-time object that has the similar description of thetest object in the object repository.

Q. How can i check the properties of an object in an application without using checkpoints? For Example how will you check whether a button is enabled?
Answer: GetROProperty method is used to retrieve the properties of the object in an application.It is very useful method and can be used to retrieve almost any of the property that can be seenwhile spying the object with object spy. For Example‘To get whether button is enabled or not.

Val = Browser("QA Friends").Page("QA Friends"). WebButton("Login"). GetROProperty("disabled")

‘To get whether a checkbox is on or off.

Val =Browser("QA Friends").Page("QA Friends").WebCheckBox("Test").GetROProperty("Value")

Q. How can I modify the properties values of test objects in Object Repository during runtime?
A. You can use SetTOProperty method of test object.Object(description).SetTOProperty Property, ValueThe values of test object properties are used to identify the objects. Sometimes the properties ofthe object in the application change dynamically. For example text of a link in a webpage is theusername used to login to that page.Text property is used by test object to identify the link. So in order to identify the actual object wecan manipulate the value of “text” property of link using SetTOProperty.

Q. How do you synchronize your scripts in QTP?
A. For waiting until navigation of web page completes we can use Sync method. For waiting until an object appears we can use Exist method. For waiting until a property of object changes we can use WaitProperty method. You can set browser navigation timeout in: Click Test > Settings menuSelect web tab in Test Settings window. Enter the timeout in Browser Navigation Timeout text box. You can set global object sychrozization timeout in: Click Test > Settings menu Select Run tab in Test Settings window. Enter the timeout in Object Synchronization Timeout text box.

Q Where can you write user defined functions that are accessible by all scripts?
A. We can write user defined function in .vbs file. This file can be loaded by adding the file asfollows: Click Test > Settings menuSelect Resources tab in Test Settings window and add the file. Alternatively you can also load the file through script usingExecuteFile “absolute or relative path of file” For Example: ExecuteFile “C:\Test.vbs”

Q What are regular expressions?
A. Regular expressions used for identifying objects and text strings with varying values. You can use regular expressions for defining the property values of an object, creating checkpoints with varying values etc. Example: For example if the caption on the button in an application changes dynamically and can be anything which starts with “Hello” (It can be Hello XYZ, Hello AB13 and so on) You can go object repository and change the value of name property of the button object to” Hello.*”Here “.” means any single character and “*” means 0 or more occurrences of preceding character. So.* means 0 or more occurrences of any character. There are many other regular expression characters: For Example: Regular expression test[0-9] matches test0, test1, test2…… to test9.Regular expression abc[789] matches abc7, abc8, abc9Q. Different ways to parameterize tests? A. Test, action or component parameters – for using values from other action in your test. Data Table parameters – for creating data driven test based on values in data table. Environment variable parameters – For using values of environment variable. Random number parameters – For using random numbers as values in our test or component.
Q. What can you do if values of object properties in an application are changing constantly?
A. We can try using alternatives like regular expressions, Changing description of test objects in object repository during run time, using descriptive programming and so on.
Q. What can you do if objects are not identified by QTP?
A. 1) For standard windows environment you can try object mapping user defined classes to standard classes.2)You can find whether any addins are available for given environment.3) check if any other reliable alternatives are available like using keyboard shortcuts, using automation object model of application if available and so on.
Q. What is descriptive programming?
A. Descriptive programming allows you to work with objects that are not stored in objectrepository. two types of programmatic descriptions.1) listing the set of properties and values that describe the object directly in a teststatement.2) Add collection of properties and values to a Description object, and then enter the Description object name in the statement.

Q. How will you access database from QTP?
A. You can use ActiveX Data Object for accessing the content of database. You cancreate connection object, recordset object and then execute query. And access the valuesof query in recordset.

Example Set objConn= CreateObject("ADODB.connection")

Set objRecSet = CreateObject("ADODB.recordset")objConn.open strConString

'strConString is database connection string.objRecSet.open strQuery,objConn 'strQuery is SQL query to execute.

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

User Acceptance Testing

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:18:00 +0000

User Acceptance Testing is a key feature of projects to implement new systems or processes. It is the formal means by which we ensure that the new system or process does actually meet the essential user requirements. Each module to be implemented will be subject to one or more User Acceptance Tests (UAT) before being ‘signed off’ as meeting user needs. The following overview answers some of the main questions that have been asked about UATs.

What is a User Acceptance Test?
A User Acceptance Test is:
• A chance to completely test business processes and software
• A scaled-down or condensed version of a system
• The final UAT for each system module is the last chance to perform the above in a test Situation

What does the User Acceptance Test cover?
The scope of each User Acceptance Test will vary depending on which business process is being tested. In general however, tests will cover the following broad areas:
• A number of defined test cases using quality data to validate end-to-end business processes.
• A comparison of actual test results against expected results
• A meeting/discussion forum to evaluate the process and facilitate issue resolution.

What are the objectives of a User Acceptance Test?
Objectives of the User Acceptance Test are for a group of key users to:
• Validate system set-up for transactions and user access
• Confirm use of system in performing business processes
• Verify performance on business critical functions
• Confirm integrity of converted and additional data, for example values that appear in a look-up table
• Assess and sign off go-live readiness

Who will attend the User Acceptance Tests?
The project team will work with relevant stakeholders and managers to identify the people who can best contribute to system testing. Most of those involved in testing will also have been involved in earlier discussions and decision making about the system set-up. All users will receive basic training to enable them contribute effectively to the test.

UAT Agenda
The agenda for each UAT will be agreed in advance with the users. The time required will vary depending on the extent of the functionality to be tested. The test schedule will allow time for discussion and issue resolution.

Roles and Responsibilities
The process of the User Acceptance Test must be carefully managed to ensure that it is able to meet the objectives above. The project team will be responsible for coordinating the preparation of all test cases and the UAT group will be responsible for the execution of all test cases (with support from the project team).

The User Acceptance Test Group will
• Ensure that the definition of the tests provide comprehensive and effective coverage of all reasonable aspects of functionality
• Execute the test cases using sample source documents as inputs and ensure that the final outcomes of the tests are satisfactory
• Validate that all test case input sources and test case output results are documented and can be audited
• Document any problems, and work with the project team to resolve problems identified during the tests
• Sign off on all test cases by signing the completed test worksheets
• Accept the results on behalf of the relevant user population
• Recognize any changes necessary to existing processes and take a lead role locally in ensuring that the changes are made and adequately communicated to other users

The Project Team will:
• Provide first level support for all testing issues
• Advise on changes to business process and procedure and/or
• Change the system functionality, where possible, via set up changes
• Track and manage test problems

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

Interview Questions Part 4

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:39:00 +0000

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Q. What can be done if requirements are changing continuously?

A. QA/Test Managers are familiar with the software development process; able to maintain enthusiasm of their team and promote a positive atmosphere; able to promote teamwork to increase productivity; able to promote cooperation between Software and Test/QA Engineers, have the people skills needed to promote improvements in QA processes, have the ability to withstand pressures and say *no* to other managers when quality is insufficient or QA processes are not being adhered to; able to communicate with technical and non-technical people; as well as able to run meetings and keep them focused.

What can be done if requirements are changing continuously?
Work with management early on to understand how requirements might change, so that alternate test plans and strategies can be worked out in advance. It is helpful if the application's initial design allows for some adaptability, so that later changes do not require redoing the application from scratch. Additionally, try to...

* Ensure the code is well commented and well documented; this makes changes easier for the developers.
* Use rapid prototyping whenever possible; this will help customers feel sure of their requirements and minimize changes.
* In the project's initial schedule, allow for some extra time to commensurate with probable changes.
* Move new requirements to a 'Phase 2' version of an application and use the original requirements for the 'Phase 1' version.
* Negotiate to allow only easily implemented new requirements into the project; move more difficult, new requirements into future versions of the application.
* Ensure customers and management understand scheduling impacts, inherent risks and costs of significant requirements changes. Then let management or the customers decide if the changes are warranted; after all, that's their job.
* Balance the effort put into setting up automated testing with the expected effort required to redo them to deal with changes.
* Design some flexibility into automated test scripts;
* Focus initial automated testing on application aspects that are most likely to remain unchanged;
* Devote appropriate effort to risk analysis of changes, in order to minimize regression-testing needs;
* Design some flexibility into test cases; this is not easily done; the best bet is to minimize the detail in the test cases, or set up only higher-level generic-type test plans;
* Focus less on detailed test plans and test cases and more on ad-hoc testing with an understanding of the added risk this entails.

Q. What if the application has functionality that wasn't in the requirements?

A. It may take serious effort to determine if an application has significant unexpected or hidden functionality, which it would indicate deeper problems in the software development process. If the functionality isn't necessary to the purpose of the application, it should be removed, as it may have unknown impacts or dependencies that were not taken into account by the designer or the customer.
If not removed, design information will be needed to determine added testing needs or regression testing needs. Management should be made aware of any significant added risks as a result of the unexpected functionality. If the functionality only affects areas, such as minor improvements in the user interface, it may not be a significant risk.

Q. Why are there so many software bugs?

A. Generally speaking, there are bugs in software because of unclear requirements, software complexity, programming errors, changes in requirements, errors made in bug tracking, time pressure, poorly documented code and/or bugs in tools used in software development.

* There are unclear software requirements because there is miscommunication as to what the software should or shouldn't do.
* Software complexity. All of the followings contribute to the exponential growth in software and system complexity: Windows interfaces, client-server and distributed applications, data communications, enormous relational databases and the sheer size of applications.
* Programming errors occur because programmers and software engineers, like everyone else, can make mistakes.
* As to changing requirements, in some fast-changing business environments, continuously modified requirements are a fact of life. Sometimes customers do not understand the effects of changes, or understand them but request them anyway. And the changes require redesign of the software, rescheduling of resources and some of the work already completed have to be redone or discarded and hardware requirements can be effected, too.
* Bug tracking can result in errors because the complexity of keeping track of changes can result in errors, too.
* Time pressures can cause problems, because scheduling of software projects is not easy and it often requires a lot of guesswork and when deadlines loom and the crunch comes, mistakes will be made.
* Code documentation is tough to maintain and it is also tough to modify code that is poorly documented. The result is bugs. Sometimes there is no incentive for programmers and software engineers to document their code and write clearly documented, understandable code. Sometimes developers get kudos for quickly turning out code, or programmers and software engineers feel they cannot have job security if everyone can understand the code they write, or they believe if the code was hard to write, it should be hard to read.
* Software development tools , including visual tools, class libraries, compilers, scripting tools, can introduce their own bugs. Other times the tools are poorly documented, which can create additional bugs.

Q. What is risk analysis? What does it have to do with Severity and Priority?

A. Risk analysis is a method to determine how much risk is involved in something. In testing, it can be used to determine when to test something or whether to test something at all. Items with higher risk values should be tested early and often. Items with lower risk value can be tested later, or under some circumstances if time runs out, not at all. It can also be used with defects. Severity tells us how bad a defect is: "how much damage can it cause?". Priority tells us how soon it is desired to fix the defect: "should we fix this and if so, by when?".
Companies usually use numeric values to calculate both values. The number of values will change from place to place. I assume a five-point scale but a three-point scale is commonly used. Using a defect as an example, Major would be Severity1 and Trivial would be Severity5. A Priority1 would imply that it needs to be fixed immediately and a Priority5 means that it can wait until everything else is done. You can add or multiply the two digits together (there is only a small difference in the outcome) and the results become the risk value. You use the event's risk value to determine how you should address the problem. The lower values must be addressed before the middle values, and the higher values can wait the longest.

Defect 12345
Foo displays an error message with incorrect path separators when the optional showpath switch is applied
Sev5
Pri5
Risk value (addition method) 10
Defect 13579
Module Bar causes system crash using derefenced handle
Sev1
Pri1
Risk value (addition method) 2
Defect 13579 will usually be addressed before 12345.

Another method for Risk Assessment is based on a military standard, MIL-STD-882. It describes the risk of failure for military hardware. The main area of interest is section A.4.4.3 and its children where they indicate the Assessment of mishap risk. They use a four-point severity rating: Catastrophic; Critical; Marginal; Negligible. They then use a five-point probability rating: Frequent; Probable; Occasional; Remote; Improbable. Then rather than using a mathematical calculation to determine a risk level, they use a predefined chart. It is this chart that is novel as it groups risks together rather than giving them discrete values. If you want a copy of the current version, search for MIL-STD-882D using Yahoo! or Google.

Q. Give some examples of
Low Severity and Low Priority Bugs
High Severity and Low Priority Bugs
Low Severity and High Priority Bugs
High Severity and High Priority Bugs ?

A. Answer1:
First know about severity and priority then its easy to decide Low or Medium or High Priority-Business oriented
Severity-Effect of bug in the functionality

1. For example there is cosmetic change in the clients name and you found this bug at the time of delivery, so the severity of this bug is low but the priority is high because it affects to the business.
2. If you found that there is major crash in the functionality of the application but the crash lies in the module which is not delivered in the deliverables in this case the priority is low and severity is high.

Answer2:
Priority - how soon your business side needs a fix. (Tip: The engineering side never decides priority.)
Severity - how bad the bug bites. (Tip: Only engineers decide severity.)
For a high priority, low severity example, suppose your program has an easter egg (a secret feature) showing a compromising photo of your boss. Schedule this bug to be removed immediately.

Low priority, high severity example: A long chain of events leads to a crash that risks the main data file. Because the chain of events is longer than customers might probably reproduce, so keep an eye on this one while fixing higher priority things.
Testers should report bugs, the business side should understand them and set their priorities. Then testers and engineers should capture the bugs with automated tests before killing them. This reduces the odds they come back, and generally reduces "churn", which is bug fixes causing new bugs.

Answer3:
Priority is how important it is to the customer and if the customer is going to find it. Severity is how bad it is, if the customer found it.
High Priority low severity
I have a text editor and every 3 minutes it rings a bell (it is also noted that the editor does an auto-save every 3 minutes). This is going to drive the customer insane. They want it fixed ASAP; i.e. high priority. The impact is minimal. They can turn off the audio when using the editor. There are workarounds. Should be easy for the developer to find the code and fix it.
Low Priority High severity
If I press CRTL-Q-SHIFT-T, only in that order, then eject a floppy diskette from the drive it formats my hard drive. It is a low priority because it is unlikely a customer is going to be affected by it. It is high severity because if a customer did find it the results would be horrific.
High Priority High severity
If I open the Save As dialog and same the file with the same name as the Save dialog would have used it saves a zero byte file and all the data is lost. Many customers will select Save As then decide to overwrite the original document instead. They will NOT cancel the Save As and select Save instead, they will just use Save As and pick the same file name as the one they opened. So the likelihood of this happening is high; therefore high priority. It will cause the customer to lose data. This is costly. Therefore high severity.
Low Priority low severity
If I hold the key combination LEFT_CTRL+LEFT_ALT+RIGHT_ALT+RIGHT_CTRL+F1+F12 for 3 minutes it will display cryptic debug information used by the programmer during development. It is highly unlikely a customer will find this so it is low priority. Even if they do find it it might result in a call to customer service asking what this information means. Telling the customer it is debug code left behind; they didn't want to remove it because it would have added risk and delayed the release of the program is safer than removing it and potentially breaking something else.

Answer4:
High Priority low severity
Spelling the name of the company president wrong
Low Priority High severity
Year end processing breaks ('cause its 6 more months 'till year end)
High Priority High severity
Application won't start
Low Priority low severity
spelling error in documentation; occasionally screen is slightly
misdrawn requiring a screen refresh

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you

Ram

Interview Questions Part 3

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:23:00 +0000

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Q. What is Requirements Traceability? What is the purpose of it? Explain types of traceability matrices?

A. Requirement traceability is last section of the tester's test plan that measure to cover all the requirements of the projects/products.

Q. What do you mean by Requirements coverage? Why is the purpose of this?

A. Requirements Coverage indirectly known as Traceability Matrix it means we have to cross check whether our application covers all requirements of customer or not....so that we can build and test the application without failing of any requirements which is the most critical features of Customer satisfaction..

Q. Explain the techniques used to estimate the number of test cases to be written for a particular project?

A. There is no particular techniques to estimate the number of test cases required for a project that mainly depends on test engineer who is writing test cases.

Q. What is the difference between stub and driver?

A. A simple meaning for STUBS and DRIVES
A Dummy program which are used to test the original program system development.

Stub and driver both are dummy programs using during integration of modules.
Stubs are using in Top-down approach.
Drivers are using in Bottom-up approach

Q. Describe me to the basic elements you put in a defect report?

A. Complete information such that developers can understand the bug, get an idea of its severity, and reproduce it if necessary.
Bug identifier (number, ID, etc.)
Brief description of the bug
Steps to reproduce the bug
Current bug status (e.g., 'Released for Retest', 'New', etc.)
The application name or identifier and version
The function, module, feature, object, screen, etc. where the bug occurred
Environment specifics, system, platform, relevant hardware specifics, app server, database
Test case name/number/identifier
Full bug description
Severity of the bug
Screen shots where the bug has occurred

Q. Can anyone explain, "What is meant by Equivalence Partitioning "?

A. Equivalence partitioning
A technique in black box testing is equivalence partitioning. Equivalence partitioning is designed to minimize the number of test cases by dividing tests in such a way that the system is expected to act the same way for all tests of each equivalence partition. Test inputs would be selected from each partition.
Equivalence partitions are designed so that every possible input belongs to one and only one equivalence partition.
Disadvantages
Doesn't test every input
No guidelines for choosing inputs
Heuristic based
very limited focus

Q. How to calculate the estimate for test case design and review?

A. Its completely depends upon project requirements, resources, level of testing with time constraints.

Q. What is the difference between System Testing, Integration Testing & System Integration Testing?

A. System Testing
It a End to End testing of the application against requirements where the testing Environment is just like a Production Environment but not Production Environment...

Integration Testing
To check the interface between the modules is called Integration Testing.

Q. Give example of a bug having high priority and low severity?

A. It really depends on the project requirement, but one good example I can think off is say there is a requirement for rounding up off $ amount in a banking application & the requirement in SRS says the $ in the checking account should not be rounded but if the application is rounding off the $ amount to higher value than its a high priority -low severity bug.

Q. Describe bottom-up and top-down approaches

A. Top down and Bottom-up approach mainly comes in the integration testing.
In the Top down approach:-
* Modules are integrated by moving downwards. The sub level is called stubs.
* Stubs replace low level modules.
*Depath first or breadth first manner.
In the Bottom -up approach:-
* Modules are integrated by moving upwards.
* Drivers are needed.

Q. Could anybody explain the difference b/w Patch, Build and Pilot?

A. The build is the code which is developed by the developers (coders).for example. an application
Patch is the modification which is being done to the code

OR

adding additional functionality to the code (application)
Pilot is testing the application in the real time environment with limited number of users

Build: build can be defined as the module given to the QA team with some functionality.
Patch: patch can be defined as the enhancement in the released product... or the new functionality added to the same version.
Pilot: pilot can be defined as the basic functionality of the product that is required to show the strength of the development team to the client... from whome the project is obtained.

Q. What is the difference between functional testing & black box testing?

A. Black-box test design treats the system as a "black-box", so it doesn't explicitly use knowledge of the internal structure. Black-box test design is usually described as focusing on testing functional requirements.
Synonyms for black-box include: behavioral, functional, opaque-box, and closed-box testing.

Q. What are the different methodologies used in testing???

A. Some of the methodologies used in Testing are :
1)CMM(Capability Maturity Model)
2)IEEE(Institute of Electrical Electronics Engine)
3)RUP(Rational Unified Process)
4)Agile Methodology
5)TQM(Total Quality Management
If anybody knows more methodologies apart from these let me know.......

Q. What are the modes of win runner? (neither recording modes /nor run modes).

A. Win runner Recording modes are Consex sencitive Mode and Analog Mode
Win runner Run Mode are Verify Mode, debuge Mode, Update Mode
Win runner GUI modes:-Global, Per test
Win runner Recording methods:-
Record
Pass-up
Object
Ignore

Q. What is heuristic checklist used in Unit Testing?

A. The preferable check list is (I am using this).
1. Understand the need of module/function in relation to specs
2.Make sure about the type of values you are passing to the function as input.
3. Have a clear idea about the output that you are expecting from the function based on point 1(above).
4. Be specific about the test data you are passing to the function in terms of type (incase of positive testing).
5. Remember that you need to do both positive and negative testing.
6. Be Clear about type casting (if any).
7. Have a Cristal clear idea about type of assertions (is used to test/compare the actual with expected).
8. Be clear about how the function is being called and is there any other function calls involved in the function you are testing.
9. Perform Regression testing for each new build and keep a log of modifications you are making to your Unit test project (better if you use Visual source Safe).
10. Its always better to debug both positive and negative testing to see how the function is performing so that you can have a clear understandability about the function you are testing.
11. its always better to have a separate project for unit testing by using just referencing the dll of the application.
I hope my answer will help you, if you find anything new and interesting feel free to share.

Q. Explain about Metrics and types of metrics like schedule variance, effort variance?

A. Schedule Variance = ((Actual Duration - Planned Duration)/Planned Duration)*100
Effort Variance = ((Actual Effort - Planned Effort)/planned effort) *100

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com.

Thank you

Ram

Interview Questions Part 2

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:38:00 +0000

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Q. What is a Risk? What are the important components of the risk?

A. Risk is a condition that will result in loss.
The important components of risk are a) Probability the risk will occur b) Impact of the risk c) Frequency of occurrence

Q. What is walkthrough and inspection?

A. Walkthrough is there for both Testing and Coding.
Walkthrough for testing means brief review of documents, Test cases, Test script etc.
Walkthrough for Coding means review the coding for whether the Developer follows the Coding standards or not.

Inspection is job of Quality Control (QC). He can conduct Inspections and Audits on the project at any time to check whether the process is going on correctly or not.
I will tell y one example for Test Engineer, QA, QC
Take an Examination Center: In that

Test Engineer is Examiner
QA is sitting squad
QC is a flying squad

Q. What is Release Acceptance Testing?
What is Forced Error Testing?
What is Data Integrity Testing?
What is System Integration Testing

A. Following are the details regarding Release Acceptance Testing, System Integration Testing, Data Integrity Testing

1. Release Acceptance Testing
Lets consider the following example:
The business says a bank plans to plan to test a cards application in 3 releases: Release 1, 2 & 3.
Each release has few enhancements (functionalities) like Chargeback’s, Fraud reporting etc.,
Testing these enhancements release wise is termed as Release Acceptance Testing

2. System Integration Testing
Clubbing all the modules of an application together and testing it as one single system is termed as System Integration Testing

3. Data Integrity Testing
Consider the scenario below:
When some external data (like Flat Files) are transmitted into to your application you expect complete communication of data (say for example if you are expecting Rs.5000/- from the external file to be populated as Rs.5000/- in Transaction Amount field in your application then you are looking out for Integrity of data transferred from external interface to your application. This is Data Integrity Testing
No idea about Forced Error Testing.

Q. What is the Compatibility testing difference between testing in IE explorer and testing in Firefox?

A. In IE we can look perfectly the web pages where as in Firefox some images and text are not displayed properly

Q. How do u conduct boundary analysis testing for "ok" pushbutton?

A. There is no boundary value analysis for "Ok" Push-Button.

Q. What is the strength and weakness in testing?

A. Strength: Judgeemnt skills, patience, pessimistic in nature, strong desire quality Weakness: like, i love coffee so i drink coffee every hour

Q. What do we do when there is a known bug at the time of software release?

A. If there is any open bug at the time of release we mention in the release note which we send with the release, in open list of issues. As we know if client finds that we have mentioned the issue in release note he will not be worried about the type of testing being done on the application. But if he himself finds that bug it will hurt our company image.

Q. What is "bug leakage?" and what is "bug release?"

A. The bugs un discovered in the previous stage / cycles is called bug leakage for that stage/cycle. Eg. Suppose you have completed System Testing (ST)
and certified the application as fully tested and send it for UAT. but UAT certainly uncovers some of the bugs which are not found at ST stage. so bugs are leaked from ST stage to UAT. this is called bug leakage.

Q. Which of the following statements about regression testing are true?
(1) Regression Testing must consist of a fixed set of tests to create a baseline
(2) Regression Testing should be used to detect defects in new features
(3) Regression Testing can be run on every build
(4) Regression Testing should be targeted to areas of high risk and known code change
(5) Regression Testing, when automated, is highly effective in preventing defects

A. 1 4 and 5 are correct

Q. How can we perform testing without expected results?

A. Main concept in testing is the expected result. By knowing the expected behavior of the application or system from SRS and FDS, we can derive a test case. When executed the derived test cases, actual result is noted. Any deviation from the expected is considered as a defect.

In Adhoc testing, there is no need of a test case, but if we want to log a defect, we should know the expected behaviour of the application or a system.

There is only one possibility for this question according to me. Exploratory testing.
An interactive process of concurrent product exploration, test design, and test execution. The heart of exploratory testing can be stated simply. The outcome of this test influences the design of the next test. Tester will explore the product or application and will note down the expected result and will design a test case and execute the test.

Q. What is defect leakage?

A. If any defect which we could not find out in system test environment then it is called as defect leakage.

Q. What are the parameters of Quality cost?

A. Quality cost or Cost of quality depends on the time factor that is at what time the bug is detected. If the bug is detected at the time of release then the cost of quality will increase & if the bug is detected at requirement phase then the cost of quality will be very less. So the conclusion is the main parameter of Quality cost is "Time at which bug is detected".

Q. Could we test window's calculator through win runner. for e.g. if I have to show get the value of calculator buttons.

A. yes, we can test the window's calculator using win Runner and also you can show the values of buttons.

Q. What is SQA Activities?

A. SQA activities - suggesting & reviewwing the process docuemtents
Example - reviewing project management plan, etc

Q. What is the difference in writing the test cases for Integration testing and system testing

A. Integration Testing:
Mostly the integration Testing is not done by Test Engineer.
Integration testing test case includes a partial amount of the conditions used for system testing.
System testing = Functionality Testing + Integration + Unit (Complete round of testing)

Q. What is a deliverable ? Can you please mention the names of deliverables in your current project .

A. Test Deliverables:-
1.Test plan document
2.Test case document
3. Test strategic document
4.test script document
5.test scenario document
6.test log document
7.coding guidlines document
8. automation procedure document

Q. What metrics used to measure the size of the software?

A. There are 4 ways in which u can measure the program size1)Lines of code i.e.LOC2)Function points3)McCabe's complexity metric which is the number of decisions(+1) in a program4)Halstead's metrics that are used to calculate program length

Q. Let us know your understanding of Audits ?

A. Audit comes under QA. Its a checking of the processes in the organistion which are define are followed by the employee.
In this every product is audited for the process, that its going as per the organistion's define process or not. Reviwing the documents, matrix related to the product are checked.

Q. What are the contents of Risk management Plan? Have you ever prepared a Risk Management Plan ?

A. In general it consist of types risk associated and mitigation for it. It also consist of severity. In general RMP is created by PM and updated by Module Leads when needed.

Q. How can you say your project testing is completed? Explain the various factors?

A. There are so many factors to know this answer.. some main factors are.....
1) Dead line of your Project reaches
2) Your Estimated Budget over.
3) Acives Customer's Requirement with certain percentage of test case passed.
etc......

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you

Ram

Interview Questions Part 1

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:16:00 +0000

Q. Give me full explanation for SDLC process.

A. SDLC means Software Development Life Cycle.
In this approach following activities are carried out.
1. Requirements gathering
2. Analysis and planning

3. Design

4. Coding

5. Testing

6. Maintenance

In this approach testing comes into picture after coding and conducted by same development people. Testing can be have a place in any of these stage depends on the Development Models.

Q. What is the testing life cycle?

A. There is no standard, but it consists of:
Test Planning (Test Strategy, Test Plan(s), Test Bed Creation)
Test Development (Test Procedures, Test Scenarios, Test Cases)
Test Execution
Result Analysis (compare Expected to Actual results)
Defect Tracking
Reporting

I have done some modification in the above answer , please find below the same :
Test Life Cycle :
1. Test Plan :
a)Test Scope
b)Test Strategy
c)Test scheduling
d)Test Estimation
e)Test Bed Creation
f)Test Techniques
2. Test Development:
a)Test Scenarios
b)Test Case Authoring
3. Test Execution
4. Result Analysis ( comparing the expected and actual result)
5.Defect Tracking -->
a)Filing of new defect
b)Verification of defect
c)closure of defect
6.Test Regression
7.Test Stop.

Q. Difference between Configuration Management and Version Control.

A. Version Control is part of Configuration Management.
Read the following, you will understand.

Configuration Management is the approach used in managing the individual components (software & hardware) that make up the? System? It is important not to confuse ? Configuration Management? with ? Change Management?
Change management is concerned with changes made to an item/s. Whereas Configuration Management is concerned with managing all of the individual items, and all of the items as a whole (System).

Software exists in two forms; non-executable (source code) and executable code (object code). When errors are found in the software, changes may be required to be made to the source code. When this situation occurs, it is imperative to be able to identify which version of code to change. There may also arise a situation where two Developers need to make changes to the code. If the Developers are unaware of the other updating the version, then both updated versions could be saved causing lost changes or worse. Also, Testers may not be aware of which version of code to test with causing further problems.

When testing is complete, a Test Leader will need to demonstrate that the testing has been completed on a specific version of code, a necessity to ensure correct test coverage.

It is not only software and hardware components that need to be controlled, but also documentation, as project members will need to ensure they work from the correct versions.

Configuration Management consists of the following four parts:
Configuration Identification
Configuration Control
Status Accounting
Configuration Auditing
Configuration Identification
This is the process of identifying all of the individual items that will be subject to version control within the project. Details such as version and status may be recorded.

Configuration Control
This activity ensures that any changes are controlled and monitored. A master copy should be kept in order for people to be able to check out the latest version of the document to avoid two people working on the same document version. Items such as ?dates?, ?version numbers? and ?updated by? are details that may be recorded. Once the item has been updated, the item can be checked back in, resulting in it becoming the master copy. A history will be displayed when multiple versions exist.
Status Accounting
this is the process of recording and reporting on the current status of the item. It is in effect the ability to be able to view the current state of the item.
Configuration Auditing
Configuration Auditing is used to ensure that the control process that is used is being correctly adhered to

Q. How do you ensure the quality of the product?

A. The quality of the product can be ensure by look into the minimum bugs in a products as per the standard maintained by the organization for the clients. That means if a company is the six sigma oriented company then there should be at least 3-4 bugs per millions.

Q. What if there isn't enough time for thorough testing?

A. Since it's rarely possible to test every possible aspect of an application, every possible combination of events, every dependency, or everything that could go wrong, risk analysis is appropriate to most software development projects.

Use risk analysis to determine where testing should be focused. This requires judgment skills, common sense and experience. The checklist should include answers to the following questions:
* Which functionality is most important to the project's intended purpose?
* Which functionality is most visible to the user?
* Which functionality has the largest safety impact?
* Which functionality has the largest financial impact on users?
* Which aspects of the application are most important to the customer?
* Which aspects of the application can be tested early in the development cycle?
* Which parts of the code are most complex and thus most subject to errors?
* Which parts of the application were developed in rush or panic mode?
* Which aspects of similar/related previous projects caused problems?
* Which aspects of similar/related previous projects had large maintenance expenses?
* Which parts of the requirements and design are unclear or poorly thought out?
* What do the developers think are the highest-risk aspects of the application?
* What kinds of problems would cause the worst publicity?
* What kinds of problems would cause the most customer service complaints?
* What kinds of tests could easily cover multiple functionalities?
* Which tests will have the best high-risk-coverage to time-required ratio?

Q. What's normal practices of the QA specialists with perspective of software?

A. These are the normal practices of the QA specialists with perspective of software
[note: these are all QC activities, not QA activities.]
1-Desgin Review Meetings with the System Analyst and If possible should be the part in Requirement gathering
2-Analysing the requirements and the desing and to trace the desing with respect to the requirements
3-Test Planning
4-Test Case Identification using different techniques (With respect to the Web Based Applciation and Desktoip Applications)
5-Test Case Writing (This part is to be assigned to the testing engineers)
6-Test Case Execution (This part is to be assigned to the testing engineers)
7-Bug Reporting (This part is to be assigned to the testing engineers)
8-Bug Review and thier Analysis so that future bus can be removed by desgining some standards

Q. What is the difference between high level design and low level design?

A. Every software design is presenting with one high level design and one low level design.Because high level design is a system level document and low level desings are functionalise and modules level documents.

High Level Document and Low Level Document are comes under Software Requirement Specifications (SRS). It comes under the Design phase which is in SDLC.

High Level Documents are design documents wat exactly meaning is what the customer wants this comes under HLDD.

Low Level Documents in this we have in which way client wants the application and describes about the procedures and sub routins and basic documents.

Q. What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?

A. Quality assurance is set of activitates designed to ensure that maintenance process is adequate to ensure a system will meet it object.
Quality control is set of activitates designed to evaluate a developed work product

Quality Assurance deals with Monitoring and Improving entire SDLC.
Quality Control(QC) deals with Walkthroughs, Reviews and Inspection.

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - rampeddireddy2006@gmail.com, ram@examsinfo.in.

Thank you

Ram

What is Test Plan?

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 07:57:00 +0000

test-plan

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com
Thank you
Ram

Software testing questions and answers

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:49:00 +0000

This article is the part software testing question and answer series. If you have queries on software testing, quality assurance or career in testing then you can ask me these questions in comment section below.

With reference - www.softwaretestinghelp.com

Naresh A. asks:

“My past experience was related to “Test Engineer”. Recently I am appointed as Test Lead in a product based company. Currently there is no Pre-established testing process. As a TL am meant to define a standard process for the entire testing flow and I will maintain certain documents for each product.

Can you help me out in establishing a process for testing, and make me know the entire responsibilities of TL and what documents I am supposed to prepare and maintain?”

As a team leader you are responsible for project planning, scheduling, and communicating your project status to your manager and most important task of assigning and monitoring the project work. Your main responsibility is to build a team to achieve your project goals. You need to focus on handling the challenges in your project so that your team and project will grow and perform well.

As far as the standard testing process is considered, it’s depends on you - what procedure you want to establish. Yes some people might blame me for this point but I prefer to establish my own processes that work for me. I don’t stick to those old process definitions that are written and managed in some 90’s and most of which might not applicable nowadays.

Test lead is responsible for ensuring project plan changes are incorporated in test plan. You might write a test plan and test strategy (In some cases it might be written by senior test team member or even by project test manager) Ensure the work is going according to this test plan. Identify the risks and try to mitigate them. At the end of project testing life cycle ensure that all test objectives are accomplished and acceptance criteria is met.

More TL responsibilities includes: Test Case Review, Requirements Validation, Monitoring the execution of manual and automated test cases, Prepare test summary report and Communicate test status to seniors and prepare corresponding documents.

To know more on SQA processes read this article “SQA Processes- How to Test complete application“. Hope from this answer you will get good idea of testing processes and TL responsibilities.

Pavan Ankus asks:

“I am appearing for the QA positions in US. I would kindly request you to mail me the suitable challenging situations in manual testing and also since I don’t have domain knowledge in Insurance, finance and other financial domain experience I am finding hard to explain to the interviewer as an experienced person. In this regard I need your suitable answer as to how to face the interviewer?”

In every testing interview you will get this question: “Tell me any challenging situation you faced in your previous projects or Tell me any bug that you feel proud to find it?”

I think answers to these questions depend on your testing career. I know every one of you might have faced many challenging situations where exceptional thinking is required to solve such problems.

I will suggest to pick any such situation from you career and explain it in better way. At least it should sound challenging This will help you to face further questions from interviewer depending on your answer.

The broad challenges in manual testing are: How to ensure complete test coverage? Testing without an automation tool is itself a big challenge. You can also explain non-technical challenges in manual testing like managing the testing work in critical time (Llink to testing under time limit) i.e. completing testing before deadline and even worst case if the deadline itself is not feasible.

Explaining a challenging bug you found in your career can be also a good answer for this question. For example the bug that was difficult to find or reprove or having big impact on customer revenue etc.

Pavan you mentioned that you don’t have knowledge in banking and finance domain then how you expect from yourself to give answer on that? If you don’t have experience in banking and finance domain then do not put this as a skill in your resume just for the sake of matching your profile with employer requirements. If you really want to get into testing of BFSI (Banking, Financial services and Insurance) domain then first study this domain. Know the basic concepts in BFSI domain. See the resources I have listed on BFSI domain on our resource page. Keep in mind you can answer in detail about any question if you have worked on that.

Mitch asks:

“What is the best way to go about getting a pay rise? Is reporting and graphing bugs found compared to other team member a good idea?

Comparing the bug count with other team or team member is very bad idea to ask for pay rise. If you are working for the organization for long time then your employer know your value and importance in organization. There is no need to show how your bug count graph is higher than your counterparts.

So what is the best way to ask for good salary rise?

At the time of your performance appraisal you should be able to convince to your reviewer that how you worked hard for your organization, How you succeeded in managing difficult tasks and how you enhanced your skills to better match your current work profile. If you succeed in this negotiation then you will definitely get good pay rise.

Other factors considered while giving you pay rise:

Your relevant skills, Complexity of application you are working on, problem solving skill, total and relevant experience, education and certifications.

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - rampeddireddy2006@gmail.com, ram@examsinfo.in.

Thank you

Ram

Product testing Interview questions

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:36:00 +0000

Q. How will be the test cases for product testing? Provide an example of test plan template?

A. The concept of Product Testing varies from company to company. When you talk of a Product, that product can be a ERP software, Banking application product, Billing Product.

So when your writing test cases for the product you need to keep in mind one main thing that is ''Check for Business functionality'. Your test case should cover the above aspect with all the other like field validation.

For writing Test Plan, Under the Approach and Strategy section you need to clearly mention what are the things that your going to test. So this may vary from product to product.

Q. What are the advantages of working (as a tester) for a product based company and a service based company?

A. In product based company, the tester will come out with creative idea about the products. he think like a client when changes were being made. Products are basically should have less work and more out put to client. Where as for applications, once it is done it will be implemented and maintenance work will be there once in a year as per the company policy

Q. How product based testing differs from Project based testing. Give me a suitable example

A. There is no much difference between product and project. product is some thing that first it will be developed, tested and sale it to clients, where as project is taking the requirement, develop, test and then hand over to client

1) product will take lot of changes according to different clients and the nature of business. Where as application take only few changes until client satisfies.

2) Single product can be sold to multiple clients, where as applications are as per the client requirement

3) product--demo--client approve--sale

application--client requirement--develop--approve

Q. What is meant by Test Plan? What will be included in it? Give a sample Test Plan for a Login Screen

A. I think there is a lot of confusion between a test plan and test case.

Test Plan: Test Plan is a document consisting of scope, objective, approach, schedule of the testing activities for the specific project. It mainly consists of who to test? when to test?, why to test?, where to test?

IEEE 829-1983 standard test plan consists of different fields like, Test plan ID, Introduction, Test Items, Features to be tested, Features not to be tested, Testing tasks, Schedules, Training and Environmental needs, Test Approach, Deliverables, Item pass/fail criteria, test suspension criteria, human resources.

For login screen, test plan can be created. But it is not important to create test plan for login screen alone. A test plan will be created for the whole project. For Login screen, test case's can be created and executed to find defects.

Test case is a document consists of Serial Number, Steps Description, Expected, Actual, Test Data, etc. A test case is derived from SRS, FDS, Use Case's etc. For login screen, a user interface test case can be created to check the spelling and location of user name, password, and text boxes and for buttons ok and cancel and any remaining items on that screen.

Input domain test cases can be created for User Name and Password. Techniques like equivalence partitioning and boundary value analysis is used to create test data. Test data is divided into valid boundaries and invalid boundaries. For all valid boundaries positive tests and for each invalid boundary negative test can be created

Q. What is the difference between testing a product and testing any web -based application?

A. if product is a client based one then there is difference between this both but if the product is web based then no difference in my view product is build by company and kept for sale as to be sold by customers who needs them and product will be customized as per required changes (if needed) and sold to customer. in sense ur question is some what confusing as it should product testing Vs project testing otherwise web testing Vs client server testing

Q. Difference between Web based testing and Client server testing

A. Web Based Application: here you are going to check the application which is going to be launched on the internet or intranet. Means it is in the form of web pages.

Client Server application: Basically the applications used in LAN in which a client and a server is present. In this a .exe file of the application stored at the server is called from the client and accessed and all the database is stored in the application.

Q. How to do SOAP Testing manually?

A. Easiest way....ask developers to provide a client tough way.....learn HTTP n SOAP a little write client programs to call the server..U can use perl/python

SOAP is simple object access protocol, uses for the data transmission between two applications, its better to understand the structure of SOAP, and test it by wrong format, and check whether it can carry all type of datas into it. Give wrong XML format into it and send it, send a non-authorized name space into it, but when you want to test the capability or maximum output from the SOAP you need to test the how big request message it can carry by creating a big SOAP.

Q. How Waterfall model can be used in developing a product?

A. Usually products are first developed and then it is sold to customers. so even u follow the water fall method, at last u have to change some features according to their demand requirement. Client may ask for design change after coding and testing, so difficult to maintain the water fall method.

Q. How will be the test cases for product testing? Provide an example of test plan template

A. totally agrees wtih mr.Amte. As u don’t have any particular requirement. So u have to discuss with team and write test cases. But personally u need to note the fundamental features and restrictions of different features and then start write test case. Just like Name options: no blank space, only characters

phone number: no blank numbers, only numerical, limited to 10 numerical

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - rampeddireddy2006@gmail.com, ram@examsinfo.in.

Thank you

Ram

QC Roles & Responsibilities

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:46:00 +0000

-->

1. Test Associate

Reporting To:

Team Lead of a project

Responsibilities:

Design and develop test conditions and cases with associated test data based upon requirements
Design test scripts
Executes the test ware (Conditions, Cases, Test scripts etc.) with the test data generated
Reviews test ware, record defects, retest and close defects
Preparation of reports on Test progress

2. Test Engineer

Reporting To:

Team Lead of a project

Responsibilities:

Design and develop test conditions and cases with associated test data based upon requirements
Design test scripts
Executes the test ware (Conditions, Cases, Test scripts etc.) with the test data generated
Reviews test ware, record defects, retest and close defects
Preparation of reports on Test progress

3. Senior Test Engineer

Reporting To:

Team Lead of a project

Responsibilities:

Responsible for collection of requirements from the users and evaluating the same and send out for team discussion
Preparation of the High level design document incorporating the feedback received on the high level design document and initiate on the low level design document
Assist in the preparation of test strategy document drawing up the test plan
Preparation of business scenarios, supervision of test cases preparation based on the business scenarios
Maintaining the run details of the test execution, Review of test condition/cases, test scripts
Defect Management
Preparation of test deliverable documents and defect metrics analysis report

4. Test Lead

Reporting To:

Test Manager

Responsibilities:

Technical leadership of the test project including test approach and tools to be used
Preparation of test strategy
Ensure entrance criteria prior to test start-off
Ensure exit criteria prior to completion sign-off
Test planning including automation decisions
Review of design documents (test cases, conditions, scripts)
Preparation of test scenarios and configuration management and quality plan
Manage test cycles
Assist in recruitment
Supervise test team
Resolve team queries/problems
Report and follow-up test systems outrages/problems
Client interface
Project progress reporting
Defect Management
Staying current on latest test approaches and tools, and transferring this knowledge to test team
Ensure test project documentation

5. Test Manager

Reporting To:

Management

Responsibilities:

Liaison for interdepartmental interactions: Representative of the testing team
Client interaction
Recruiting, staff supervision, and staff training.
Test budgeting and scheduling, including test-effort estimations.
Test planning including development of testing goals and strategy.
Test tool selection and introduction.
Coordinating pre and post test meetings.
Test program oversight and progress tracking.
Use of metrics to support continual test process improvement.
Test process definition, training and continual improvement.
Test environment and test product configuration management.
Nomination of training
Cohesive integration of test and development activities.
Mail Training Process for training needs, if required
Review of the proposal

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - knowthetesting@gmail.com

Thank you
Ram

Regression Testing and Re-testing

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:35:00 +0000

“Retesting of a previously tested program following modification to ensure that faults have not been introduced or uncovered as a result of the changes made.”

… BS7925-1

“Regression Testing is the process of testing the changes to computer programs to make sure that the older programs still work with the new changes.”

“When making improvements on software, retesting previously tested functions to make sure adding new features has not introduced new problems.”

Regression testing is an expensive but necessary activity performed on modified software to provide confidence that changes are correct and do not adversely affects other system components. Four things can happen when a developer attempts to fix a bug. Three of these things are bad, and one is good:

	New Bug	No New Bug
Successful Change	Bad	Good
Unsuccessful Change	Bad	Bad

Because of the high probability that one of the bad outcomes will result from a change to the system, it is necessary to do regression testing. A regression test selection technique chooses, from an existing test set, the tests that are deemed necessary to validate modified software.

There are three main groups of test selection approaches in use:

Minimization approaches seek to satisfy structural coverage criteria by identifying a minimal set of tests that must be rerun.
Coverage approaches are also based on coverage criteria, but do not require minimization of the test set. Instead, they seek to select all tests that exercise changed or affected program components.
Safe attempt instead to select every test that will cause the modified program to produce different output than original program.

1. Factors favour Automation of Regression Testing

Ensure consistency
Speed up testing to accelerate releases
Allow testing to happen more frequently
Reduce costs of testing by reducing manual labor
Improve the reliability of testing
Define the testing process and reduce dependence on the few who know it

2. Tools used in Regression testing

WinRunner from Mercury
e-tester from Empirix
WebFT from Radview
Silktest from Radview
Rational Robot from Rational
QA Run from Compuware

If you have any quarries/feed back send me on - rampeddireddy2006@gmail.com, ram@examsinfo.in.

Thank you
Ram

What you need to know about BVT (Build Verification Testing)

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:16:00 +0000

What is BVT?

Build Verification test is a set of tests run on every new build to verify that build is testable before it is released to test team for further testing. These test cases are core functionality test cases that ensure application is stable and can be tested thoroughly. Typically BVT process is automated. If BVT fails that build is again get assigned to developer for fix.

BVT is also called smoke testing or build acceptance testing (BAT)

New Build is checked mainly for two things:

Build validation
Build acceptance

Some BVT basics:

It is a subset of tests that verify main functionalities.
The BVT’s are typically run on daily builds and if the BVT fails the build is rejected and a new build is released after the fixes are done.
The advantage of BVT is it saves the efforts of a test team to setup and test a build when major functionality is broken.
Design BVTs carefully enough to cover basic functionality.
Typically BVT should not run more than 30 minutes.
BVT is a type of regression testing, done on each and every new build.

BVT primarily checks for the project integrity and checks whether all the modules are integrated properly or not. Module integration testing is very important when different teams develop project modules. I heard many cases of application failure due to improper module integration. Even in worst cases complete project gets scraped due to failure in module integration.

What is the main task in build release? Obviously file ‘check in’ i.e. to include all the new and modified project files associated with respective builds. BVT was primarily introduced to check initial build health i.e. to check whether - all the new and modified files are included in release, all file formats are correct, every file version and language, flags associated with each file.
These basic checks are worth before build release to test team for testing. You will save time and money by discovering the build flaws at the very beginning using BVT.

Which test cases should be included in BVT?

This is very tricky decision to take before automating the BVT task. Keep in mind that success of BVT depends on which test cases you include in BVT.

Here are some simple tips to include test cases in your BVT automation suite:

Include only critical test cases in BVT.
All test cases included in BVT should be stable.
All the test cases should have known expected result.
Make sure all included critical functionality test cases are sufficient for application test coverage.

Also do not includes modules in BVT, which are not yet stable. For some under-development features you can’t predict expected behavior as these modules are unstable and you might know some known failures before testing for these incomplete modules. There is no point using such modules or test cases in BVT.

You can make this critical functionality test cases inclusion task simple by communicating with all those involved in project development and testing life cycle. Such process should negotiate BVT test cases, which ultimately ensure BVT success. Set some BVT quality standards and these standards can be met only by analyzing major project features and scenarios.

Example: Test cases to be included in BVT for Text editor application (Some sample tests only):
1) Test case for creating text file.
2) Test cases for writing something into text editor
3) Test case for copy, cut, paste functionality of text editor
4) Test case for opening, saving, deleting text file.

These are some sample test cases, which can be marked as ‘critical’ and for every minor or major changes in application these basic critical test cases should be executed. This task can be easily accomplished by BVT.

BVT automation suits needs to be maintained and modified time-to-time. E.g. include test cases in BVT when there are new stable project modules available.

What happens when BVT suite run:
Say Build verification automation test suite executed after any new build.
1) The result of BVT execution is sent to all the email ID’s associated with that project.
2) The BVT owner (person executing and maintaining the BVT suite) inspects the result of BVT.
3) If BVT fails then BVT owner diagnose the cause of failure.
4) If the failure cause is defect in build, all the relevant information with failure logs is sent to respective developers.
5) Developer on his initial diagnostic replies to team about the failure cause. Whether this is really a bug? And if it’s a bug then what will be his bug-fixing scenario.
6) On bug fix once again BVT test suite is executed and if build passes BVT, the build is passed to test team for further detail functionality, performance and other testes.

This process gets repeated for every new build.

Why BVT or build fails?
BVT breaks sometimes. This doesn’t mean that there is always bug in the build. There are some other reasons to build fail like test case coding error, automation suite error, infrastructure error, hardware failures etc.
You need to troubleshoot the cause for the BVT break and need to take proper action after diagnosis.

Tips for BVT success:
1) Spend considerable time writing BVT test cases scripts.
2) Log as much detailed info as possible to diagnose the BVT pass or fail result. This will help developer team to debug and quickly know the failure cause.
3) Select stable test cases to include in BVT. For new features if new critical test case passes consistently on different configuration then promote this test case in your BVT suite. This will reduce the probability of frequent build failure due to new unstable modules and test cases.
4) Automate BVT process as much as possible. Right from build release process to BVT result - automate everything.
5) Have some penalties for breaking the build Some chocolates or team coffee party from developer who breaks the build will do.

Conclusion:
BVT is nothing but a set of regression test cases that are executed each time for new build. This is also called as smoke test. Build is not assigned to test team unless and until the BVT passes. BVT can be run by developer or tester and BVT result is communicated throughout the team and immediate action is taken to fix the bug if BVT fails. BVT process is typically automated by writing scripts for test cases. Only critical test cases are included in BVT. These test cases should ensure application test coverage. BVT is very effective for daily as well as long term builds. This saves significant time, cost, resources and after all no frustration of test team for incomplete build.

An approach for Security Testing of Web Applications

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Introduction

As more and more vital data is stored in web applications and the number of transactions on the web increases, proper security testing of web applications is becoming very important. Security testing is the process that determines that confidential data stays confidential (i.e. it is not exposed to individuals/ entities for which it is not meant) and users can perform only those tasks that they are authorized to perform (e.g. a user should not be able to deny the functionality of the web site to other users, a user should not be able to change the functionality of the web application in an unintended way etc.).

Some key terms used in security testing

Before we go further, it will be useful to be aware of a few terms that are frequently used in web application security testing:

What is “Vulnerability”?
This is a weakness in the web application. The cause of such a “weakness” can be bugs in the application, an injection (SQL/ script code) or the presence of viruses.

What is “URL manipulation”?
Some web applications communicate additional information between the client (browser) and the server in the URL. Changing some information in the URL may sometimes lead to unintended behavior by the server.

What is “SQL injection”?
This is the process of inserting SQL statements through the web application user interface into some query that is then executed by the server.

What is “XSS (Cross Site Scripting)”?
When a user inserts HTML/ client-side script in the user interface of a web application and this insertion is visible to other users, it is called XSS.

What is “Spoofing”?
The creation of hoax look-alike websites or emails is called spoofing.
Security testing approach:

In order to perform a useful security test of a web application, the security tester should have good knowledge of the HTTP protocol. It is important to have an understanding of how the client (browser) and the server communicate using HTTP. Additionally, the tester should at least know the basics of SQL injection and XSS. Hopefully, the number of security defects present in the web application will not be high. However, being able to accurately describe the security defects with all the required details to all concerned will definitely help.

1. Password cracking:

The security testing on a web application can be kicked off by “password cracking”. In order to log in to the private areas of the application, one can either guess a username/ password or use some password cracker tool for the same. Lists of common usernames and passwords are available along with open source password crackers. If the web application does not enforce a complex password (e.g. with alphabets, number and special characters, with at least a required number of characters), it may not take very long to crack the username and password.

If username or password is stored in cookies without encrypting, attacker can use different methods to steal the cookies and then information stored in the cookies like username and password.

2. URL manipulation through HTTP GET methods:

The tester should check if the application passes important information in the querystring. This happens when the application uses the HTTP GET method to pass information between the client and the server. The information is passed in parameters in the querystring. The tester can modify a parameter value in the querystring to check if the server accepts it.

Via HTTP GET request user information is passed to server for authentication or fetching data. Attacker can manipulate every input variable passed from this GET request to server in order to get the required information or to corrupt the data. In such conditions any unusual behavior by application or web server is the doorway for the attacker to get into the application.

3. SQL Injection:

The next thing that should be checked is SQL injection. Entering a single quote (‘) in any textbox should be rejected by the application. Instead, if the tester encounters a database error, it means that the user input is inserted in some query which is then executed by the application. In such a case, the application is vulnerable to SQL injection.

SQL injection attacks are very critical as attacker can get vital information from server database. To check SQL injection entry points into your web application, find out code from your code base where direct MySQL queries are executed on database by accepting some user inputs.

If user input data is crafted in SQL queries to query the database, attacker can inject SQL statements or part of SQL statements as user inputs to extract vital information from database. Even if attacker is successful to crash the application, from the SQL query error shown on browser, attacker can get the information they are looking for. Special characters from user inputs should be handled/escaped properly in such cases.

4. Cross Site Scripting (XSS):

The tester should additionally check the web application for XSS (Cross site scripting). Any HTML e.g. or any script e.g.

Attacker can use this method to execute malicious script or URL on victim’s browser. Using cross-site scripting, attacker can use scripts like JavaScript to steal user cookies and information stored in the cookies.

Many web applications get some user information and pass this information in some variables from different pages.

E.g.: http://www.examplesite.com/index.php?userid=123&query=xyz

Attacker can easily pass some malicious input or

Automation

ramwebmail@gmail.com (Ram) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:54:00 +0000

What is Automation Automated testing is automating the manual testing process currently in use

Why Automate the Testing Process?

Today, rigorous application testing is a critical part of virtually all software development projects. As more organizations develop mission-critical systems to support their business activities, the need is greatly increased for testing methods that support business objectives. It is necessary to ensure that these systems are reliable, built according to specification, and have the ability to support business processes. Many internal and external factors are forcing organizations to ensure a high level of software quality and reliability.

In the past, most software tests were performed using manual methods. This required a large staff of test personnel to perform expensive, and time-consuming manual test procedures. Owing to the size and complexity of today’s advanced software applications, manual testing is no longer a viable option for most testing situations.

Every organization has unique reasons for automating software quality activities, but several reasons are common across industries.

Using Testing Effectively

By definition, testing is a repetitive activity. The very nature of application software development dictates that no matter which methods are employed to carry out testing (manual or automated), they remain repetitious throughout the development lifecycle. Automation of testing processes allows machines to complete the tedious, repetitive work while human personnel perform other tasks.

Automation allows the tester to reduce or eliminate the required “think time” or “read time” necessary for the manual interpretation of when or where to click the mouse or press the enter key.

An automated test executes the next operation in the test hierarchy at machine speed, allowing tests to be completed many times faster than the fastest individual. Furthermore, some types of testing, such as load/stress testing, are virtually impossible to perform manually.

Reducing Testing Costs

The cost of performing manual testing is prohibitive when compared to automated methods. The reason is that computers can execute instructions many times faster, and with fewer errors than individuals. Any automated testing tools can replicate the activity of a large number of users (and their associated transactions) using a single computer. Therefore, load/stress testing using automated methods requires only a fraction of the computer hardware that would be necessary to complete a manual test. Imagine performing a load test on a typical distributed client/server application on which 50 concurrent users were planned.

To do the testing manually, 50 application users employing 50 PCs with associated software, an available network, and a cadre of coordinators to relay instructions to the users would be required. With an automated scenario, the entire test operation could be created on a single machine having the ability to run and rerun the test as necessary, at night or on weekends without having to assemble an army of end users. As another example, imagine the same application used by hundreds or thousands of users. It is easy to see why a manual method for load/stress testing is an expensive and logistical nightmare.

Replicating Testing Across Different Platforms

Automation allows the testing organization to perform consistent and repeatable tests. When applications need to be deployed across different hardware or software platforms, standard or benchmark tests can be created and repeated on target platforms to ensure that new platforms operate consistently.

Repeatability and Control

By using automated techniques, the tester has a very high degree of control over which types of tests are being performed, and how the tests will be executed. Using automated tests enforces consistent procedures that allow developers to evaluate the effect of various application modifications as well as the effect of various user actions.

For example, automated tests can be built that extract variable data from external files or applications and then run a test using the data as an input value. Most importantly, automated tests can be executed as many times as necessary without requiring a user to recreate a test script each time the test is run.

Greater Application Coverage

The productivity gains delivered by automated testing allow and encourage organizations to test more often and more completely. Greater application test coverage also reduces the risk of exposing users to malfunctioning or non-compliant software. In some industries such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, organizations are required to comply with strict quality regulations as well as being required to document their quality assurance efforts for all parts of their systems.