I'm running Fitnesse with SharePoint and in trying to automate my tests I ended up wrapping everything up in PowerShell, this is my first full script that handles all the tests I wanted to do.

First set up all the variables needed.

[string]$fitnesseJar = "fitnesse.jar"
[string]$fitnesseClass = "fitnesse.runner.TestRunner"
# Need to get the local machine here, it will be where Fitnesse runs
[string]$serverName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
[string]$portName = "8080"
# These are needed for the CheckFitnessProcess function, placing them here
$fitRunning = $false
# Since we need to manipulate this variable in a few different functions, its Global
[int]$Global:startTries = 0
# Set Java executbale to use within PowerShell
$Java = "java.exe"
# Use a Test Array to be able to bundle all the tests
$smokeArray = ( "FitNesseTestPageName1" )
$qaArray = ( "FitNesseTestPageName2" )

I use a function to check if Fitnesse is running, I wanted to only run it when I needed to and since this script can be automated I cannot be sure that Fitnesse will always be running

# CheckFitnesseProcess determines if Fitnesse is running; in which case
# it jumps down to running the tests, as long as Fitness is running the Check does
# not need to do anything else.
# If Fitnesse is not running then the script attempts to start it, does a
# check to make sure that Fitnesse started then runs the test.  If this script
# starts Fitnesse then it will attempt to clean up after itself and stop
# Fitnesse by doing a check on $startTries, if this is > 0 then this script
# started Fitnesse and can shut it down, otherwise it leaves the existing
# process running
# Adapted from: http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2006/07/17/5330.aspx
function CheckFitnesseProcess {
  param ([string]$AppPoolName="")
  $ProcessId = $null
  if ($AppPoolName.ToUpper() -ne $NOT_PASSED) {
    [string]$filter = $null
    if ((Get-Process java -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) -ne $null) {
  Get-Process java | ForEach {
   # use WMI API to get process details
   $filter = "Handle='" + $_.Id + "'"
   $wmip = Get-WmiObject Win32_Process -filter $filter
   # CommandLine property has AppPool name; grab name using contains
   if($wmip.CommandLine.contains("fitnesse")) {
    # Uncomment the next line for debugging
    # Write-Host "Found this java process: $wmip.CommandLine `n"
    $fitRunning = $true
    # Saving the Process ID to stop the process later,
    # using a Global as I could not get this work if I declared
    # the variable at the beginning.
    $Global:fitProcess = $_.Id
   }
   # The next statement was put in to check for the processes, there was a problem
   # when updating Java that the process find command did not work, if this happens
   # again just uncomment the Write-Host line to find out what is going on, otherwise
   # this just gets bypassed but caught later on.
   if ($fitRunning -eq $false)
   {
    # Uncomment the next line for debugging
    # Write-Host "Did not find a Java/Fitnesse Process.  Found $wmip.CommandLine `n"
   }
  }
 }
 if (($fitRunning -eq $false) -and ($Global:startTries -lt 3)) {
  # Don't need to note that we have had 0 attempts
  if ($Global:startTries -gt 0) {
   # Need to give Fitnesse some attempts at starting, 3 is a good max
   Write-Host "Fitnesse is not running, have tried to start $Global:startTries time(s),`n"
  }
  $Global:startTries++
  startFitnesse
 }
    if (($fitRunning -eq $false) -and ($Global:startTries -eq 3)) {
  # At some point we need to give up starting it
        Write-Host "Fitnesse is not running, tried to start $Global:startTries time(s).`n"
  Write-Host "Strike Out!" -ForegroundColor Red
        Write-Host "Looks like Fitnesse cannot be started or found,`n"
  Write-Host "check the server and try again.`n"
  # Go back to where we started
  Pop-Location
        exit;
    }
 if ($fitRunning -eq $true) {
  # Success!!
  Write-Host "Fitnesse is good to go.`n" -ForegroundColor Green
 }
  }
}

Then I needed something to start Fitnesse, this uses the Fitnesse Batch script that comes with many of the installs

function startFitnesse()
{
 Write-Host "Attempting to start up Fitnesse...`n"
 # Starts the Fitnesse process using the batch configuration file
 # Not sure we need the runAs Admin but that can be adjusted
 Start-Process -FilePath fitnesse.bat
 # Giving it time to wake up
 Start-Sleep -Seconds 2
 # Need to check that the process actually started, do the check again
 CheckFitnesseProcess
}

Every script needs a help option

function myHelp()
{
 Write-Host "The Fitnesse Tester understands the following command line arguments:`n"
 Write-Host "    qa    - will run the QA Test Suites, a long set of tests`n"
 Write-Host "    smoke - which will run the Build Smoke Tests, a short set`n"
 Write-Host "`n Running this script with no arguments will display this message`n"
}

Then there is the main and rest of the script that runs everything

function main()
{
 # Need to be in the Fitnesse directory to access TestRunner, and
 # the Fitnesse batch file in case Fitnesse needs to be started
 cd $fitnesseLocale
    #Check and see if Fitnesse is running
    CheckFitnesseProcess
 foreach ($test in $testArray)
 {
  # Start the test
  Write-Host "`nRunning $test`n"
  # Get the output from TestRunner so we can scrape it for test passes and fails
  $testResults = & $Java "-cp" "$fitnesseJar" "$fitnesseClass" "-v" "$serverName" "$portName" "$test"
  Write-Host "Completed $test`n"
  Write-Host "Test Results..."
  # Scan through the output, then display the results
  # Dump $testResults out to a File
  $testResults | Out-File "$test.txt"
  foreach ($line in $testResults)
  {
   if ($line -match "Assertions:") {
    # Write-Host "$line"
    # Do a regular expression to get the Assertion info
    # Example: Assertions: 8 right, 0 wrong, 0 ignored, 0 exceptions
    $line -match ":\s(?\d+)\sr.*(?\d+)\sw.*(?\d+)\si.*(?\d+)\se.*"
    # Send a summary of the results to the console
    Write-Host "Passed:     "$matches.right -ForegroundColor Green
    Write-Host "Failed:     "$matches.wrong -ForegroundColor Red
    Write-Host "Ignored:    "$matches.ignores
    Write-Host "Exceptions: "$matches.exception -ForegroundColor Yellow
   }
  }
 }
 # Go back to where we started
 Pop-Location
 # Stop the Fitnesse process so we don't leave things running
 # But only if this script started it, which means $startTries is > 0
 if ($Global:startTries -ge 1){
  Write-Host "`nSince this script started Fitnesse, it'll be shut down now.`n"
  Stop-Process -Id $fitProcess
 }
}

# Check command line values to see what test is running
if ($args -eq "smoke")
{
 $testArray = $smokeArray
 Write-Host "Running Smoke Test.`n"
}
elseif ($args -eq "qa")
{
 $testArray = $qaArray
 Write-Host "Running QA Test Suite.`n"
}
elseif ($args -eq "check")
{
 $testArray = $checkArray
 Write-Host "Running Check Suite.`n"
}
else
{
 myHelp
 exit;
}

# Run main
main

I've moved onto REST but in case anyone else is trying to work with the TestRunner and PowerShell you have something you can start with, and not have to work it all from the beginning like I did.

http://strazzere.blogspot.com/

I've been learning a lot about SharePoint over the past 9 months, the project I am working on is to bring a non-profit health community onto SharePoint and increase the offerings the non-profit has and to expand the social networking.  My work is revolving around testing the conversion of the site, making sure that what we end up with is going to be equivalent with what is currently in place.  It's interesting work and I've had some interesting tasks over the past few months.  Some of the more difficult work has been dealing with SharePoint and its eccentricities in order to assure that what we end up with is what was asked for.

Web Parts are like little applications that SharePoint uses to do all kinds of work, this could be anything from displaying a document library to a search result.  While they are like little applications Web Parts are quite different and aren't very testable on their own, I haven't seen much on them regarding Unit Testing yet and with their reliance on SharePoint data its probably not that easy.  Mostly the plan is to test the Web Parts in an exploratory fashion, when they are ready and added to pages they will be used and abused to put them through their paces.  Not the way I'd like to do it, but I am also pulling some information from the Microsoft page on how to test Web Parts.

Automation with SharePoint is kind of tough, not that its difficult to work with, but the page layouts and Web Parts don't always make things run smooth.  Web Parts can update like Ajax driven pages will, some of the ID's given by SharePoint for page elements can also be cryptic or dynamic.  It's not impossible, I have done tests with Selenium, Fitnium and Fitnesse after some time to work out the issues in calling page elements.  It just seems to take more time than it should.

The Social Networking aspects make things a little hard to automate everything, it would be nice to free myself up for other work but that's more a dream than a reality.  Testing Discussion Groups, Comments and Ratings means eyes need to be on the page as things are done in order to verify that SharePoint responds properly.

When trying to find errors there are two important places to look:

1. ULS Logs - Get the Microsoft ULS Log Viewer, if there is something happening real time, this is the place to see it happen.  Access to the SharePoint server under test is required to get this to work though.
2. Event Log - the Event Log is where alot of the captured errors go, if the Developers have not set this up in the code they should otherwise you lose and important resource.

I'll be putting in more links to some of the material I have captured over the past few months.

I've moved to a new location, and migrated over all the posts I wanted to keep.

The new home for All Things Quality is:

http://strazzere.blogspot.com/

I'm hoping this will give me better control over layout, formatting, comment moderation, etc.  Check it out, and let me know what you think!

'
' CreateFile - Create a file of arbitrary length
'
' Author: Joe Strazzere
'

Function CreateFile(location$, Length)
 Local MyStr$, Target, Main1000, Main100, Remain, Index

 MyStr$=""

Target = Length
Main1000 = Target / 1000
Main100 = (Target mod 1000) / 100
Remain = Target mod 100

Index = 0
While Index < Main1000
  MyStr$ = MyStr$ + "JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS.................................................................................................JSS................................................................................................."
  Index = Index + 1
Wend

Index = 0
While Index < Main100
  MyStr$ = MyStr$ + "JSS................................................................................................."
  Index = Index + 1
Wend

Index = 0
While Index < Remain
  MyStr$ = MyStr$ + "."
  Index = Index + 1
Wend

'MsgBox(Len(MyStr$))
Write(Location$,MyStr$)

EndFunction

CreateFile("c:joetest.txt",123456)

This week marks the 10-year anniversary of my joining SQAForums "The online community for software testing & quality assurance professionals".  The site is completely free, can be found at http://www.sqaforums.com and is owned and administered by A.J. Alhait.

From the SQAForums site:

The most popular Software Testing and Quality Assurance discussions site, with over 50 forums that cover almost every area in software testing, quality assurance and quality engineering.

 

If you are looking for place to get help or support on any software testing tool, you've found the only place! Simply ask our 180,000+ Members for almost anything, and you'll be surprised at the amount of help you can get here which you cannot get anywhere else.

 

SQA Forums - "The online knowledge bank for Software Test professionals... Will you be withdrawing or making a deposit today?"

Over the years, I've posted almost 10,000 times, read many, many thousands of thoughtful and helpful posts, and learned quite a lot from some very smart and experienced professionals.

At SQAForums, I currently moderate:

• The Automated Testing forum
• The WinTask forum
• The Software Testing Interview Questions forum
• The Oracle e-Test forum
• The Oracle e-Load forum
• The Knights of the QA Republic Round Table forum (for Moderators only)

In case you are interested, my first post was a reply to a question about how to do automated testing if there is a UI change:  http://www.sqaforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB34&Number=275059
 
And my first question was a WinRunner question, asking how to set up some exception handling:  http://www.sqaforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB4&Number=53017

If I've helped anyone along the way as well, then I'm very pleased to have done so, although I know that I have received far more than I have given.

Thank you, A.J.!  I've gotten a lot out of the past 10 years, and I hope to continue here for many more.  You've given the QA community an extremely valuable resource!

If you aren't already a member - what are you waiting for?

Reading a post from my friend The Director over at his QA Hates You blog (http://qahatesyou.com/wordpress/2010/04/qahy-gets-recognized/), I noticed that All Things Quality is ranked there as well.

Q: What do Larry Bird and All Things Quality have in common?
A: Both are #33.

At least that's where Steven Machtelinckx places us in his TestingMinded blog post "Top 100 Software Testing Blogs".
http://www.testingminded.com/2010/04/top-100-software-testing-blogs.html

Thanks, Steven!
Thanks, The Director!

Any comments on this article?
Email Me

Due to a faulty virus definition update, machines running Windows XP Service Pack 3 using the faulty definitions will delete svchost.exe, causing many key Windows services to fail to start. This Windows file is being mistakenly detected as W32/wecorl.a. Failure to start svchost.exe causes Windows to automatically reboot.

• National software glitch
• Hundreds of thousands of computers disabled
• A huge disruption
• Strangely similar to a widespread virus outbreak
• Software update caused the anti-virus program to misidentify a harmless file (svchost.exe) as infected
• A chain of uncontrolled restarts and loss of networking functionality
• Shut down the State of Vermont's computer network
• Many hospitals postpone elective surgeries
• Organizations who had to shut down for business until this is fixed.
• According to Ars Technica it "Would be trivially detected with even basic QA, which makes the regularity of such problems perplexing"
• According to Amrit Williams (a former director of engineering with McAfee) it shows "a complete failure in their quality control process"

McAfee says:

We are investigating how the incorrect detection made it into our DAT files and will take measures to prevent this from reoccurring.

 

http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/mcafee-response-on-current-false-positive-issue/

And:

Mistakes happen. No excuses. The nearly 7,000 employees of McAfee are focused right now on two things, in this order. First, help our customers who have been affected by this issue get back to business as usual. And second, once that is done, make sure we put the processes in place so this never happens again.

http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/a-long-day-at-mcafee/

This is not the first time for McAfee.  Back in 2006, they similarly flagged system files as infected:

http://www.sqablogs.com/jstrazzere/125/Perhaps+They+Should+Have+Tested+More+-+McAfee.html

Perhaps they should have learned their lesson in 2006.  Perhaps they should have tested more.

See also:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/194752/few_answers_after_mcafee_antivirus_update_hits_intel_others.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20003074-83.html
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100422/NEWS03/4220303/McAfee-software-glitch-disrupts-Vt.-state-business
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/university_hospital_plagued_by.html
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/21/mcafee-update--shutting-down-xp-machines/
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/21/business/AP-US-TEC-McAfee-Antivirus-Flaw.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/21/mcafee_false_positive/
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/04/broken-mcafee-dat-update-cripples-windows-workstations.ars
http://www.kpth.com/Global/story.asp?S=12353561
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8636985.stm

Updated, April 23, 2010

From Barry McPherson on McAfee's blog:

Of course many of you are asking how the faulty DAT made it past our quality assurance checks. The problem arose during the testing process for this DAT file. We recently made a change to our QA environment that resulted in a faulty DAT making its way out of our test environment and onto customer systems.

 

To prevent this from happening again, we are implementing additional QA protocols for any releases that directly impact critical system files. In addition, we plan to add capabilities to our cloud-based Artemis system that will provide an additional level of protection against false positives by leveraging an expansive whitelist of critical system files. 

http://siblog.mcafee.com/support/an-update-on-false-positive-remediation/

https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB68787

And in his blog, technology writer Ed Bott tells us that he received a document from an anonymous source that appears to be a pre-scrubbed (and perhaps more telling) version of what appears on the McAfee blog.

Among the interesting nuggets:

"Specifically, XP SP3 with VSE 8.7 was not included in the test configuration at the time of release."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=2031

They left Windows XP SP3 out of their test matrix?  Wow!

Any comments on this article?
Email Me

For our Spring vacation this year, my wife and I decided to go back to Florida.

This time we went to Longboat Key, a beautiful barrier island on the west coast of Florida, surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico and Sarasota Bay.

The weather was perfect, the beaches were wonderful.

• We stayed at a really nice Inn
• Each morning we took long walks
• Each day we spent time in the sun, in the ocean, in the pool
• Each evening we watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico
• We took in a Grapefruit League baseball game - the Red Sox crushed the Orioles in Sarasota (go Sox!)
• We spent some time shopping and eating at St. Armands Circle
• We went to Siesta Key Beach - home of "The Best Sand in the World"
• We went to some really nice restaurants

One thing I experimented with this year - no reading! 

Usually, I bring at least 3 books for vacation reading.  But this year I wanted to try something different.  Rather than bringing the usual reading material, I loaded up my iPod with podcasts.  Not bad!  Some really interesting lectures and discussions about science, politics, sports.  I think next vacation, I will go back to bringing books, but will also continue with the podcasts.  Oh, and I need a different set of earbuds.  The ones that come with the iPod get uncomfortable (at least for me) after a while.

A truly wonderful vacation.  One of the most relaxing vacations I can remember.

On Saturday (27th March) I went to a RapidFTR CodeJam.  RapidFTR is Rapid Family Tracing and Reunification.  It has been created in order to help rescue agencies looking after kids in disaster areas.  It'll store personal and medical details which will help children get proper medical attention and reunite them with their family but also just as importantly help keep them safe from human traffickers.  
It’s a good cause and if you can spare some of your time then please have a look for more details here: http://wwww.rapidftr.com.

I was of course late and so missed the meet n greet but it was a pretty good turn out which is great.  It must have been 20(ish) people in London and a couple of guys in New York with who we were video conferencing.

For a lot of people the majority of the day was spent on environment setup.  I had real trouble getting it setup on my Ubuntu netbook and it in fact took all day.

Lessons learnt from the environment setup:

1. If you are tired don't leave it until 12:30am to setup your environment then stop halfway through because the setup guide is not quite working for your version of Linux.

2. If you are going to a CodeJam the next day do not install a theme on your netbook at 1am, get it half working then go to bed.  It'll cause you performance issues the next day.

3. Prepare a VM to use for your environment setup; it'll make life much easier.

4. Just because there is a guide for a Linux environment setup don't assume it's been tried with different versions of Linux.

5. Keep a note of the steps you tried during the setup so that when you do get it working you can write a guide for other people.

Silly things really, I should have known better.

The Devs worked in pairs working in 25min increments, took a 5min break then worked another 25 then a 5 min break, it seemed to work well.

Although the environment setup was tricky it was good to hear different people, strangers really, working together in pairs on their stories.  A few stories were actually completed which is great.

I was absolutely useless that day as it took me forever to get up and running.  I aim to be able to add some value as the project progresses though by brushing up on my Ruby so I can help with the code and with testing.

The idea of the testers/QAs floating about helping people with their tests was put forward but I felt this might distract if the Devs were in flow.

Details about development are here: http://www.rapidftr.com/developer

I aim to knock up a setup guide for Ubuntu over the next few days to make the process quicker.

It's a good way (as cheesy as this sounds) to help make the world a better place, brush up on your skillset and meet and work with new people.  

So please help if you can.

Our Product is Insight

In http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/forum/topics/our-product-is Anne-Marie Charrett spoke about a great website she read with the tagline "our product is explanation".

Then, for the Testing and QA community, she posed these thought-proving questions:

So, would it be possible to simplify the concept of software testing into one word?
If you had the same tagline to fill, what word would you use that encapsulates what software testing brings to its customers?

I answered:

Our Product is ... Insight

To me, the insight we provide may lead to warmfuzzies, or confidence, or peaceofmind, or assurance (some of the other possibilities suggested in the thread). But it may also lead to starkterror.

Either way, we show "what is", not "what makes people feel good".

We don't omit the bad news, in order to spare people's feelings, although we carefully choose our words to provide information and not blame.

We don't produce morale boosters or positive reinforcement, even though some (like Joel Spolsky, see: http://www.sqablogs.com/jstrazzere/2820/Testers+and+Developers+at+Fog+Creek+Software.html) seem to think that's a significant role for QAers.

We work to uncover what is, so that the business may make appropriate, informed decisions.