Working with Tosca TBox Timing Modules and Related Interview Questions
August 17, 2018
Working with Tosca TBox Timing Modules (TBox Wait, TBox Timer) and Related Interview Questions
Welcome to this Post – “Working with Tosca TBox Timing modules and Related Interview Questions”. This post discusses about the Tosca TBox modules like Wait and Timer, their available modules attributes and their implementation. This discussion will also focus on some frequently asked Tosca TBox Wait and Timer related interview questions on these modules. The complete post is divided into small sections, discussing the concepts first and then focusing on the implementation and later discuss about some frequently asked TBox interview questions. So, go ahead and enjoy reading…
Heads Up!
” Before we start discussing the usage and implementation of Tosca TBox Timing modules present in Tosca, I would recommend if you do not have in depth knowledge on TBox Architecture then please visit the link shared below so that you get an idea on how the TBox framework works when you use the inbuilt TBox modules in your test cases:
To Know more on Tosca TBox Architecture-Click Here
”
Whenever an automation tester starts working on test cases there are many challenges he has to face that may be project level or tool level. In terms of tool, an automation tester always finds it difficult to handle scenarios like server response is to slow and page gets loaded slowly. In this case, the page loads the controls very slow, and of course not to mention the test case can fail. These scenarios are typically known as synchronization problems. The synchronization between page loads, control load, post action on controls responses are frequent examples where tester face such problems.
To cop up such situations Tosca Commander has lot of options. But in this discussion we will see two different Tosca TBox Timing modules which are used in synchronization situations and measure the execution time of the test execution respectively.
The Tosca TBox Timing module folder contains the following Modules:
- TBox Start Timer
- TBox Stop Timer
- TBox Wait
Let’s first discuss on Tosca TBox Timing Module – TBox Wait- the most common approach for solving the synchronization problems.
Tosca TBox Wait
Whenever the test cases are executed in test environment which are usually different from Production environments, the test cases might fail. Among lot of other reasons synchronization is most common one. These failures occur due to slow response by server which has lot of load or has less memory. To tackle such situations we use the Tosca TBox Wait module.
Now TBox Wait gives option to synchronize at test step level. If you are not sure on test step level, then visualize it as tree structure: first comes test case folder->test case-> test step. This feature is extremely helpful as you don’t have to write long codes and look for failures again and again as once you specify the time to wait Tosca takes care of all.
Now consider a situation where tester knows a step might fail due to network load or slow response etc, and wants to continue to next step rather than waiting and failing the test case. In this case the TBox Wait module can save your time and effort.
The best part is a tester can set the TBox wait attribute value at n-number of times in a test case.
****Point to Note****
Tester can also configure same in recovery scenarios.
Now let’s focus on the Module Attributes of TBox Wait module:
| ModuleAttribute | Description |
| Duration | This is the time duration that a tester can define so that execution can wait to the specified duration between two TestSteps. The duration is always in milliseconds. |
Example:
In this example, the system waits 6 seconds prior to continuing with the next TestStep.
From above example it’s evident that before moving to next step it is waiting for 6sec, so after initializing the selenium server it waits for 6secs to start the execution.
Definitely you can use with Tosca test cases and this is just an example to show you it doesn’t matter even if the scripts are of selenium.
Now let’s move on to another module which measures the execution time.
TBox Start/Stop Timer Modules
Usually when an automation tester is creating modules, and from them derives the test cases, it is often required to check the response time of some web page in order to adjust the test cases properties accordingly.
But question is how it can be done? Tosca TBox gives tester flexibility to measure the exact duration for say a web page should be expected to load in.
The modules are available inside the TBox-> Timing folder.
Tosca TBox Start Timer and TBox Stop Timer can be used to measure time.
****Point to Note****
The TBox Timer modules (Both Modules) must be used in a single TestCase only. The functionality is not extended across several test cases.
All values are in milliseconds.
TBox Start Timer
-The TBox Start Timer Module starts time measurement.
The TBox Start Timer has following module attributes:
| ModuleAttribute | Description |
| ID | Tester can define unique name for the timer. There can be any number of start timers. |
TBox Stop Timer
-The TBox Start Timer Module stops time measurement.
The Module TBox Stop Timer has following module attributes:
| ModuleAttribute | Description |
| ID | Tester should mention the unique name of the timer that should be stopped.
Several timers of various unique IDs can be started and stopped in any order. |
| Maximal Duration | This is extremely helpful in case of comparing time measurements with the value entered here. |
Another important point is that – where exactly can we see the information post test run?
The timing modules result can be seen in the Loginfo column of an ExecutionEntry. Plus the result is also buffered with the name(ID) of the timer.
Example
In the below example, consider our selenium test cases take 6sec in execution. Now after using the timer and wait modules in the same test case, we can see that we are expecting the execution to be completed in some 6 sec, but unfortunately it is not going to happen as additional 6sec are there for wait. So the “Maximal Duration” will fail on its verification.
Conclusion
I would like to share with you some interview questions related to Tosca TBox Timing modules which are advanced in nature and definitely require your Tosca expertise to solve them. To be honest, some of these questions are not completely part of this discussion; instead I want you to find solution when you are working in the project.
Few questions for you to cogitate on analyzing the problem statement and try arriving at the solution:
- Can tester use the TBox timing modules across test cases?
- What all synchronization options are available other than TBox Wait?
- Does measuring execution time of a test case should always be a practice?
- Should tester use the TBox Timing modules for all possible test cases?
- Where TBox timing modules results are shown?
- What is the maximum time that can be mentioned in TBox wait module?
- For a broader perceptive of a test case execution time, can we use more than one Timer modules?
Well, this brings me to the end of the discussion “Working with Tosca TBox Timing modules and Related Interview Questions” where we have discussed some concepts as well as interview questions.
I really hope you enjoyed reading the post. If you have any doubt on this please feel free to add your comment below.
And if you like to read more on TOSCA Interview Questions please follow below links:
Tosca Interview Questions – Part 1
Tosca Interview Questions – Part 2
Tosca Interview Questions – Part 3
Tosca Interview Questions – Part 4
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