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Week 2 [Fri, Jan 15th] - Topics

Detailed Table of Contents



Guidance for the item(s) below:

Given this is a first course in SE, tradition demands that we start by defining the subject. However, we are not going to spend a lot of time going through definitions of SE. Instead, let's look at an extract from the very first chapter of a very famous SE book, with the aim of providing some inspiration but also an appreciation of the challenges ahead.

[W2.1] SE: Intro

W2.1a

Software Engineering → Introduction → Pros and cons

Can explain pros and cons of software engineering

Software engineering: Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software" -- IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology

The following description of the Joys of the Programming Craft was taken from Chapter 1 of the famous book The Mythical Man-Month, by Frederick P. Brooks.

Why is programming fun? What delights may its practitioner expect as his reward?

First is the sheer joy of making things. As the child delights in his mud pie, so the adult enjoys building things, especially things of his own design. I think this delight must be an image of God's delight in making things, a delight shown in the distinctness and newness of each leaf and each snowflake.

Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, you want others to use your work and to find it helpful. In this respect the programming system is not essentially different from the child's first clay pencil holder "for Daddy's office."

Third is the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in subtle cycles, playing out the consequences of principles built in from the beginning. The programmed computer has all the fascination of the pinball machine or the jukebox mechanism, carried to the ultimate.

Fourth is the joy of always learning, which springs from the nonrepeating nature of the task. In one way or another the problem is ever new, and its solver learns something: sometimes practical, sometimes theoretical, and sometimes both.

Finally, there is the delight of working in such a tractable medium. The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by the exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures....

Yet the program construct, unlike the poet's words, is real in the sense that it moves and works, producing visible outputs separate from the construct itself. It prints results, draws pictures, produces sounds, moves arms. The magic of myth and legend has come true in our time. One types the correct incantation on a keyboard, and a display screen comes to life, showing things that never were nor could be.

Programming then is fun because it gratifies creative longings built deep within us and delights sensibilities you have in common with all men.

Not all is delight, however, and knowing the inherent woes makes it easier to bear them when they appear.

First, one must perform perfectly. The computer resembles the magic of legend in this respect, too. If one character, one pause, of the incantation is not strictly in proper form, the magic doesn't work. Human beings are not accustomed to being perfect, and few areas of human activity demand it. Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.

Next, other people set one's objectives, provide one's resources, and furnish one's information. One rarely controls the circumstances of his work, or even its goal. In management terms, one's authority is not sufficient for his responsibility. It seems that in all fields, however, the jobs where things get done never have formal authority commensurate with responsibility. In practice, actual (as opposed to formal) authority is acquired from the very momentum of accomplishment.

The dependence upon others has a particular case that is especially painful for the system programmer. He depends upon other people's programs. These are often maldesigned, poorly implemented, incompletely delivered (no source code or test cases), and poorly documented. So he must spend hours studying and fixing things that in an ideal world would be complete, available, and usable.

The next woe is that designing grand concepts is fun; finding nitty little bugs is just work. With any creative activity come dreary hours of tedious, painstaking labor, and programming is no exception.

Next, one finds that debugging has a linear convergence, or worse, where one somehow expects a quadratic sort of approach to the end. So testing drags on and on, the last difficult bugs taking more time to find than the first.

The last woe, and sometimes the last straw, is that the product over which one has labored so long appears to be obsolete upon (or before) completion. Already colleagues and competitors are in hot pursuit of new and better ideas. Already the displacement of one's thought-child is not only conceived, but scheduled.

This always seems worse than it really is. The new and better product is generally not available when one completes his own; it is only talked about. It, too, will require months of development. The real tiger is never a match for the paper one, unless actual use is wanted. Then the virtues of reality have a satisfaction all their own.

Of course the technological base on which one builds is always advancing. As soon as one freezes a design, it becomes obsolete in terms of its concepts. But implementation of real products demands phasing and quantizing. The obsolescence of an implementation must be measured against other existing implementations, not against unrealized concepts. The challenge and the mission are to find real solutions to real problems on actual schedules with available resources.

This then is programming, both a tar pit in which many efforts have floundered and a creative activity with joys and woes all its own. For many, the joys far outweigh the woes....

Exercises




Guidance for the item(s) below:

Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to doing a software project. Those two approaches are also highly relevant to the way this module is run, and how it is different from most SE modules elsewhere.

Let's learn about those two approaches early so that we can better understand how this module works.

[W2.2] SDLC Process Models: Basics

W2.2a

Project Management → SDLC Process Models → Introduction → What

Can explain SDLC process models

Software development goes through different stages such as requirements, analysis, design, implementation and testing. These stages are collectively known as the software development life cycle (SDLC). There are several approaches, known as software development life cycle models (also called software process models), that describe different ways to go through the SDLC. Each process model prescribes a "roadmap" for the software developers to manage the development effort. The roadmap describes the aims of the development stage(s), the artifacts or outcome of each stage, as well as the workflow i.e. the relationship between stages.


W2.2b

Project Management → SDLC Process Models → Introduction → Sequential models

Can explain sequential process models

The sequential model, also called the waterfall model, models software development as a linear process, in which the project is seen as progressing steadily in one direction through the development stages. The name waterfall stems from how the model is drawn to look like a waterfall (see below).

When one stage of the process is completed, it should produce some artifacts to be used in the next stage. For example, upon completion of the requirements stage, a comprehensive list of requirements is produced that will see no further modifications. A strict application of the sequential model would require each stage to be completed before starting the next.

This could be a useful model when the problem statement is well-understood and stable. In such cases, using the sequential model should result in a timely and systematic development effort, provided that all goes well. As each stage has a well-defined outcome, the progress of the project can be tracked with relative ease.

The major problem with this model is that the requirements of a real-world project are rarely well-understood at the beginning and keep changing over time. One reason for this is that users are generally not aware of how a software application can be used without prior experience in using a similar application.


W2.2c

Project Management → SDLC Process Models → Introduction → Iterative models

Can explain iterative process models

The iterative model (sometimes called iterative and incremental) advocates having several iterations of SDLC. Each of the iterations could potentially go through all the development stages, from requirements gathering to testing & deployment. Roughly, it appears to be similar to several cycles of the sequential model.

In this model, each of the iterations produces a new version of the product. Feedback on the new version can then be fed to the next iteration. Taking the Minesweeper game as an example, the iterative model will deliver a fully playable version from the early iterations. However, the first iteration will have primitive functionality, for example, a clumsy text based UI, fixed board size, limited randomization, etc. These functionalities will then be improved in later releases.

The iterative model can take a breadth-first or a depth-first approach to iteration planning.

  • breadth-first: an iteration evolves all major components in parallel e.g., add a new feature fully, or enhance an existing feature.
  • depth-first: an iteration focuses on fleshing out only some components e.g., update the backend to support a new feature that will be added in a future iteration.

Most projects use a mixture of breadth-first and depth-first iterations i.e., an iteration can contain some breadth-first work as well as some depth-first work.



Guidance for the item(s) below:

This week, you are starting your individual project (iP). As you are adding code to the iP in rapid succession, you'll need a way to keep track of all the changes you do. The tool we are going to use for that is called Git, and we need to learn Git basics pretty quickly.

Let's jump in and learn how to get started using Git in your own computer. Yes, we are now switching our focus to the project management aspect of SE.

[W2.3] RCS: Revision History

Guidance for the item(s) below:

First, let's learn a bit about _tracking the change history of a project_ in general, at a higher level.
W2.3a

Project Management → Revision Control → What

Can explain revision control

RCS: Revision control software are the software tools that automate the process of Revision Control i.e. managing revisions of software artifacts.

Revision: A revision (some seem to use it interchangeably with version while others seem to distinguish the two -- here, let us treat them as the same, for simplicity) is a state of a piece of information at a specific time that is a result of some changes to it e.g., if you modify the code and save the file, you have a new revision (or a version) of that file.

Revision control software are also known as Version Control Software (VCS), and by a few other names.

Exercises



W2.3b

Project Management → Revision Control → Repositories

Can explain repositories

Repository (repo for short): The database of the history of a directory being tracked by an RCS software (e.g. Git).

Exercises



Guidance for the item(s) below:

Now that we know what RCS is in general, we can try to practice it ourselves using a specific tool i.e., Git.

The following section gives a specific scenario that includes the steps of initializing a Git repository.

If you are new to Git, you are highly recommended to follow those steps in your own computer to get some hands-on practice as you learn Git usage.

Note that this topic (and many other topics) come with a pre-recorded lecture video.

Admin Lectures → Extract

Tips for watching lecture videos
  • You can watch video lectures at faster speeds (x1.25 or even x1.5) to save time.
  • Lecture videos require NUSNET login.

W2.3c

Tools → Git and GitHub → init: Getting started

Video

Project Management → Revision Control → Repositories


Can create a local Git repo

Let's take your first few steps in your Git (with GitHub) journey.

0. Take a peek at the full picture(?). Optionally, if you are the sort who prefers to have some sense of the full picture before you get into the nitty-gritty details, watch the video in the panel below:

Git Overview


1. The first step is to install SourceTree, which is Git + a GUI for Git. If you prefer to use Git via the command line (i.e., without a GUI), you can install Git instead.

2. Next, initialize a repository. Let us assume you want to version control content in a specific directory. In that case, you need to initialize a Git repository in that directory. Here are the steps:

Create a directory for the repo (e.g., a directory named things).


Guidance for the item(s) below:

For the next few sections, the drill is the same: first learn the high-level explanation of a revision control concept, and then follow the given scenarios yourself to learn how to apply that concept using Git.
W2.3d

Project Management → Revision Control → Saving history

Can explain saving history

Tracking and ignoring

In a repo, you can specify which files to track and which files to ignore. Some files such as temporary log files created during the build/test process should not be revision-controlled.

Staging and committing

W2.3e

Tools → Git and GitHub → commit: Saving changes to history

Video

Git & GitHub → Init


Can commit using Git

After initializing a repository, Git can help you with revision controlling files inside the working directory. However, it is not automatic. It is up to you to tell Git which of your changes (aka revisions) should be committed to its memory for later use. Saving changes into Git's memory in that way is often called committing and a change saved to the revision history is called a commit.

Working directory: the root directory revision-controlled by Git (e.g., the directory in which the repo was initialized).

Commit (noun): a change (aka a revision) saved in the Git revision history.
(verb): the act of creating a commit i.e., saving a change in the working directory into the Git revision history.

Here are the steps you can follow to learn how to work with Git commits:

1. Do some changes to the content inside the working directory e.g., create a file named fruits.txt in the things directory and add some dummy text to it.

2. Observe how the file is detected by Git.

3. Stage the changes to commit: Although Git has detected the file in the working directory, it will not do anything with the file unless you tell it to. Suppose you want to commit the current changes to the file. First, you should stage the file.

Stage (verb): Instructing Git to prepare a file for committing.

4. Commit the staged version of fruits.txt.

Note the existence of something called the master branch. Git allows you to have multiple branches (i.e. it is a way to evolve the content in parallel) and Git auto-creates a branch named master on which the commits go on by default.

5. Do a few more commits.

  1. Make some changes to fruits.txt (e.g. add some text and delete some text). Stage the changes, and commit the changes using the same steps you followed before. You should end up with something like this.

  2. Next, add two more files colors.txt and shapes.txt to the same working directory. Add a third commit to record the current state of the working directory.

6. See the revision graph: Note how commits form a path-like structure aka the revision tree/graph. In the revision graph, each commit is shown as linked to its 'parent' commit (i.e., the commit before it).

Resources

  • Try Git is an online simulation/tutorial of Git basics. You can try its first few steps to solidify what you have learned in this LO.


W2.3f

Tools → Git and GitHub → Omitting files from revision control

Video

Revision Control: Saving History


Can set Git to ignore files

Often, there are files inside the Git working folder that you don't want to revision-control e.g., temporary log files. Follow the steps below to learn how to configure Git to ignore such files.

1. Add a file into your repo's working folder that you supposedly don't want to revision-control e.g., a file named temp.txt. Observe how Git has detected the new file.

2. Tell Git to ignore that file:

The .gitignore file

The .gitignore file tells Git which files to ignore when tracking revision history. That file itself can be either revision controlled or ignored.

  • To version control it (the more common choice – which allows you to track how the .gitignore file changes over time), simply commit it as you would commit any other file.

  • To ignore it, follow the same steps you followed above when you set Git to ignore the temp.txt file.

  • It supports file patterns e.g., adding temp/*.tmp to the .gitignore file prevents Git from tracking any .tmp files in the temp directory.

More information about the .gitignore file: git-scm.com/docs/gitignore


W2.3g

Project Management → Revision Control → Using history

Can explain using history

RCS tools store the history of the working directory as a series of commits. This means you should commit after each change that you want the RCS to 'remember'.

Each commit in a repo is a recorded point in the history of the project that is uniquely identified by an auto-generated hash e.g. a16043703f28e5b3dab95915f5c5e5bf4fdc5fc1.

You can tag a specific commit with a more easily identifiable name e.g. v1.0.2.

To see what changed between two points of the history, you can ask the RCS tool to diff the two commits in concern.

To restore the state of the working directory at a point in the past, you can checkout the commit in concern. i.e., you can traverse the history of the working directory simply by checking out the commits you are interested in.

RCS: Revision control software are the software tools that automate the process of Revision Control i.e. managing revisions of software artifacts.


W2.3h

Tools → Git and GitHub → tag: Naming commits

Video

Project Management → Revision Control → Saving History


Can tag commits using Git

Each Git commit is uniquely identified by a hash e.g., d670460b4b4aece5915caf5c68d12f560a9fe3e4. As you can imagine, using such an identifier is not very convenient for our day-to-day use. As a solution, Git allows adding a more human-readable tag to a commit e.g., v1.0-beta.

Here's how you can tag a commit in a local repo (e.g. in the samplerepo-things repo):

After adding a tag to a commit, you can use the tag to refer to that commit, as an alternative to using the hash.


W2.3i

Tools → Git and GitHub → diff: Comparing revisions

Video

Project Management → Revision Control → Using History


Can compare git revisions

Git can show you what changed in each commit.

Git can also show you the difference between two points in the history of the repo.


W2.3j

Tools → Git and GitHub → checkout: Retrieving a specific revision

Video

Project Management → Revision Control → Using History


Can load a specific version of a Git repo

Git can load a specific version of the history to the working directory. Note that if you have uncommitted changes in the working directory, you need to stash them first to prevent them from being overwritten.


W2.3k : OPTIONAL

Tools → Git and GitHub → stash: Shelving changes temporarily



Guidance for the item(s) below:

Having learned how to use Git in your own computer, let's also learn a bit about working with remote code repositories too. Yes it's a bit too much to take in one week but we want you to start using Git in your iP from the very beginning.

[W2.4] RCS: Remote Repos

W2.4a

Project Management → Revision Control → Remote repositories

Video

Can explain remote repositories

Remote repositories are repos that are hosted on remote computers and allow remote access. They are especially useful for sharing the revision history of a codebase among team members of a multi-person project. They can also serve as a remote backup of your codebase.

It is possible to set up your own remote repo on a server, but the easier option is to use a remote repo hosting service such as GitHub or BitBucket.

You can clone a repo to create a copy of that repo in another location on your computer. The copy will even have the revision history of the original repo i.e., identical to the original repo. For example, you can clone a remote repo onto your computer to create a local copy of the remote repo.

When you clone from a repo, the original repo is commonly referred to as the upstream repo. A repo can have multiple upstream repos. For example, let's say a repo repo1 was cloned as repo2 which was then cloned as repo3. In this case, repo1 and repo2 are upstream repos of repo3.

You can pull from one repo to another, to receive new commits in the second repo, if the repos have a shared history. Let's say some new commits were added to the upstream repo is a term used to refer to the repo you cloned fromupstream repo after you cloned it and you would like to copy over those new commits to your own clone i.e., sync your clone with the upstream repo. In that case, you pull from the upstream repo to your clone.

You can push new commits in one repo to another repo which will copy the new commits onto the destination repo. Note that pushing to a repo requires you to have write-access to it. Furthermore, you can push between repos only if those repos have a shared history among them (i.e., one was created by copying the other at some point in the past).

Cloning, pushing, and pulling can be done between two local repos too, although it is more common for them to involve a remote repo.

A repo can work with any number of other repositories as long as they have a shared history e.g., repo1 can pull from (or push to) repo2 and repo3 if they have a shared history between them.

A fork is a remote copy of a remote repo. As you know, cloning creates a local copy of a repo. In contrast, forking creates a remote copy of a Git repo hosted on GitHub. This is particularly useful if you want to play around with a GitHub repo but you don't have write permissions to it; you can simply fork the repo and do whatever you want with the fork as you are the owner of the fork.

A pull request (PR for short) is a mechanism for contributing code to a remote repo, i.e., "I'm requesting you to pull my proposed changes to your repo". For this to work, the two repos must have a shared history. The most common case is sending PRs from a fork to its upstream repo is a repo you forked fromupstream repo.

Here is a scenario that includes all the concepts introduced above (click inside the slide to advance the animation):


W2.4b

Tools → Git and GitHub → clone: Copying a repo

Video

Project Management → Revision Control → Remote Respositories


Can clone a remote repo

Given below is an example scenario you can try yourself to learn Git cloning.

Suppose you want to clone the sample repo samplerepo-things to your computer.

Note that the URL of the GitHub project is different from the URL you need to clone a repo in that GitHub project. e.g.

GitHub project URL: https://github.com/se-edu/samplerepo-things
Git repo URL: https://github.com/se-edu/samplerepo-things.git (note the .git at the end)


W2.4c

Tools → Git and GitHub → pull, fetch: Downloading data from other repos

Video

Tools → Git & GitHub → Clone


Can pull changes from a repo

Here's a scenario you can try in order to learn how to pull commits from another repo to yours.

1. Clone a repo (e.g., the repo used in [Git & GitHub → Clone]) to be used for this activity.

2. Delete the last few commits to simulate cloning the repo a few commits ago.

Now, your local repo state is exactly how it would be if you had cloned the repo 2 commits ago, as if somebody has added two more commits to the remote repo since you cloned it.

3. Pull from the other repo: To get those missing commits to your local repo (i.e. to sync your local repo with upstream repo) you can do a pull.

You can also do a fetch instead of a pull in which case the new commits will be downloaded to your repo but the working directory will remain at the current commit. To move the current state to the latest commit that was downloaded, you need to do a merge. A pull is a shortcut that does both those steps in one go.

Working with multiple remotes

When you clone a repo, Git automatically adds a remote repo named origin to your repo configuration. As you know, you can pull commits from that repo. As you know, a Git repo can work with remote repos other than the one it was cloned from.

To communicate with another remote repo, you can first add it as a remote of your repo. Here is an example scenario you can follow to learn how to pull from another repo:


W2.4d

Tools → Git and GitHub → Fork: Creating a remote copy

Video

Tools → Git & GitHub → Pull


Can fork a repo

Given below is a scenario you can try in order to learn how to fork a repo:.

0. Create a GitHub account if you don't have one yet.

1. Go to the GitHub repo you want to fork e.g., samplerepo-things

2. Click on the button on the top-right corner. In the next step, choose to fork to your own account or to another GitHub organization that you are an admin of.

GitHub does not allow you to fork the same repo more than once to the same destination. If you want to re-fork, you need to delete the previous fork.


W2.4e

Tools → Git and GitHub → push: Uploading data to other repos

Video

Tools → Git & GitHub → Pull


Can push to a remote repo

Given below is a scenario you can try in order to learn how to push commits to a remote repo hosted on GitHub:

1. Fork an existing GitHub repo (e.g., samplerepo-things) to your GitHub account.

2. Clone the fork (not the original) to your computer.

3. Commit some changes in your local repo.

4. Push the new commits to your fork on GitHub

You can push to repos other than the one you cloned from, as long as the target repo and your repo have a shared history.

  1. Add the GitHub repo URL as a remote, if you haven't done so already.
  2. Push to the target repo.

You can even push an entire local repository to GitHub, to form an entirely new remote repository. For example, you created a local repo and worked with it for a while but now you want to upload it onto GitHub (as a backup or to share it with others). The steps are given below.

1. Create an empty remote repo on GitHub.

  1. Login to your GitHub account and choose to create a new Repo.

  2. In the next screen, provide a name for your repo but keep the Initialize this repo ... tick box unchecked.

  3. Note the URL of the repo. It will be of the form https://github.com/{your_user_name}/{repo_name}.git.
    e.g., https://github.com/johndoe/foobar.git (note the .git at the end)

2. Add the GitHub repo URL as a remote of the local repo. You can give it the name origin (or any other name).

3. Push the repo to the remote.



Guidance for the item(s) below:

As you are likely to be using an IDE for the iP, let's learn at least enough about IDEs to get you started using one.

🤔 In case you are puzzled by the sudden change of topic, it's because we take an iterative approach to covering topics, as explained in the panel below:

[W2.5] IDEs: Basic Features

W2.5a

Implementation → IDEs → What

Can explain IDEs

Professional software engineers often write code using Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). IDEs support most development-related work within the same tool (hence, the term integrated).

An IDE generally consists of:

  • A source code editor that includes features such as syntax coloring, auto-completion, easy code navigation, error highlighting, and code-snippet generation.
  • A compiler and/or an interpreter (together with other build automation support) that facilitates the compilation/linking/running/deployment of a program.
  • A debugger that allows the developer to execute the program one step at a time to observe the run-time behavior in order to locate bugs.
  • Other tools that aid various aspects of coding e.g. support for automated testing, drag-and-drop construction of UI components, version management support, simulation of the target runtime platform, and modeling support.

Examples of popular IDEs:

  • Java: Eclipse, Intellij IDEA, NetBeans
  • C#, C++: Visual Studio
  • Swift: XCode
  • Python: PyCharm

Some web-based IDEs have appeared in recent times too e.g., Amazon's Cloud9 IDE.

Some experienced developers, in particular those with a UNIX background, prefer lightweight yet powerful text editors with scripting capabilities (e.g. Emacs) over heavier IDEs.

Exercises



W2.5b

Tools → IntelliJ IDEA → Project setup

Can setup a project in an IDE

Running IntelliJ IDEA for the First Time



Guidance for the item(s) below:

As you start adding features to your project iteratively, you'll need **a way to detect if the new code breaks the existing code**. Next, let's learn a rather simple way to do that using a certain type of testing (we'll be learning more sophisticated methods in later weeks).

This also means we are not switching focus from the implementation aspect to the testing aspect of SE.

[W2.6] Automated Testing of Text UIs

W2.6a

Quality Assurance → Testing → Introduction → What

Video

Can explain testing

Testing: Operating a system or component under specified conditions, observing or recording the results, and making an evaluation of some aspect of the system or component. –- source: IEEE

When testing, you execute a set of test cases. A test case specifies how to perform a test. At a minimum, it specifies the input to the software under test (SUT) and the expected behavior.

Example: A minimal test case for testing a browser:

  • Input – Start the browser using a blank page (vertical scrollbar disabled). Then, load longfile.html located in the test data folder.
  • Expected behavior – The scrollbar should be automatically enabled upon loading longfile.html.

Test cases can be determined based on the specification, reviewing similar existing systems, or comparing to the past behavior of the SUT.

Other details a test case can contain extra

For each test case you should do the following:

  1. Feed the input to the SUT
  2. Observe the actual output
  3. Compare actual output with the expected output

A test case failure is a mismatch between the expected behavior and the actual behavior. A failure indicates a potential defect (or a bug), unless the error is in the test case itself.

Example: In the browser example above, a test case failure is implied if the scrollbar remains disabled after loading longfile.html. The defect/bug causing that failure could be an uninitialized variable.

A deeper look at the definition of testing extra

Exercises



W2.6b

Quality Assurance → Testing → Regression Testing → What

Video

Can explain regression testing

When you modify a system, the modification may result in some unintended and undesirable effects on the system. Such an effect is called a regression.

Regression testing is the re-testing of the software to detect regressions. Note that to detect regressions, you need to retest all related components, even if they had been tested before.

Regression testing is more effective when it is done frequently, after each small change. However, doing so can be prohibitively expensive if testing is done manually. Hence, regression testing is more practical when it is automated.

Exercises



W2.6c

Quality Assurance → Testing → Test Automation → What

Can explain test automation

Resources



W2.6d

Quality Assurance → Testing → Test Automation → Automated testing of CLI applications

Video

Can semi-automate testing of CLIs

A simple way to semi-automate testing of a CLI (Command Line Interface) app is by using input/output re-direction.

  • First, you feed the app with a sequence of test inputs that is stored in a file while redirecting the output to another file.
  • Next, you compare the actual output file with another file containing the expected output.

Let's assume you are testing a CLI app called AddressBook. Here are the detailed steps:

  1. Store the test input in the text file input.txt.

    Example input.txt


  2. Store the output you expect from the SUT in another text file expected.txt.

    Example expected.txt


  3. Run the program as given below, which will redirect the text in input.txt as the input to AddressBook and similarly, will redirect the output of AddressBook to a text file output.txt. Note that this does not require any code changes to AddressBook.

    java AddressBook < input.txt > output.txt
    
    • The way to run a CLI program differs based on the language.
      e.g., In Python, assuming the code is in AddressBook.py file, use the command
      python AddressBook.py < input.txt > output.txt

    • If you are using Windows, use a normal command window to run the app, not a PowerShell window.

  4. Next, you compare output.txt with the expected.txt. This can be done using a utility such as Windows' FC (i.e. File Compare) command, Unix's diff command, or a GUI tool such as WinMerge.

    FC output.txt expected.txt
    

Note that the above technique is only suitable when testing CLI apps, and only if the exact output can be predetermined. If the output varies from one run to the other (e.g. it contains a time stamp), this technique will not work. In those cases, you need more sophisticated ways of automating tests.

CLI application: An application that has a Command Line Interface. i.e. user interacts with the app by typing in commands.


Follow up notes for the item(s) above:

Congrats! You've made it to the end of this week's topics. It feels like a lot right now but now that we got an early start, this stuff will be second nature to you by the time you are done with the semester. 😃