I noticed many testers with no knowledge of web APIs do not have an easy way to start learning about them. Most tutorials directly dive into the technical details of how to use APIs as part of writing automated checks. I wanted to provide an easy analogy for APIs that will set you up to explore this topic further. DISCLAIMER: […]
An analogy to understand web APIs
Get started with SQLite and Python
There are times when we repurpose our automated checks to scrape information off the pages it visits. This can happen when you are using automation to explore a product, looking for patterns in client data, analyzing production data to spot patterns, etc. Storing the scraped data can be tricky. Approaches to storing the scraped data range between two extremes: a) […]
How to write CSS selectors
Why this post? Testers need to know multiple ways of locating an element in a webpage as different strategies have to be used based on the context since each has its own advantage. The Cascading Style Sheet(CSS) is defined to structure and style the HTML in the webpage. These CSS patterns can be used to uniquely identify elements in the […]
Setup Locust (Python/load testing) on Windows
I recently used Locust, a load testing tool that lets you write intuitive looking Python code to load test your web applications. I did not follow Locust’s install guide and instead just tried a ‘pip install locustio’. I ended up running into some issues that were not easy to Google about. So I thought I would document the problems I […]
Get Set Test an iOS app using Appium and Python
It has been more than a year since I wrote my first blog on mobile automation using Appium for Android applications. There were many requests to come up with a similar blog for iOS applications. But due to time constraints I couldn’t get to it. But as they say, better late than never! I finally have a guide to help […]
JavaScript evaluate() and XPaths
I recently used a neat solution that involved JavaScript evaluate() and XPaths as part of an automated GUI check. I am good with Python and writing XPaths for locators but not so good with JavaScript. I needed to locate an element in the DOM and then change a specific attribute. The solution was simple enough that I did not have […]
Obtaining BrowserStack screenshots and video links
At Qxf2 we use BrowserStack to run our automated checks against different browsers. BrowserStack is a cloud-based, cross-browser, testing tool that takes away the pain of maintaining a physical lab and saves us a lot of time. Why this post? BrowserStack is a great tool to execute your automated tests. However BrowserStack is not a good tool to report the […]
CircleCI nightly automation
A Qxf2 client is using CircleCI for their continuous integration and deployment needs. We decided to run a small subset of critical tests in our automation suite against every new commit and deploy. We also run our entire automation suite, which takes longer, once every night. This post outlines how we setup CircleCI to achieve this setup. Why this post? […]
How to compare PDFs using Python
Problem:How do you compare two PDF files programmatically using Python? Adobe makes it easy to compare the changes in two PDF files. However as testers, we sometimes need to compare a lot of PDF files (especially reports!) against some preset baselines. In these cases, it helps to have a script that can compare PDF files and tell you if they […]
If you can move the earth …
I recently realized something about working in product companies that sell to healthcare providers. I am writing this in the hope that at least a few engineers contemplating working in Healthcare IT read this post and come out with a better perspective about one aspect of working in the Healthcare IT sector. Give me a place to stand on, and […]