Extension of Selenium RC tool to perform automated testing with databases in web applications

Abstract

This paper presents one extension of the Selenium RC tool to perform tests in web applications that require checking data in databases. This verification is performed using new functions implemented into the Selenium framework's core. These functions allow opening and closing database connection and comparing test data with data stored in the database used by the web application. This solution aims to contribute to the system quality by reducing the effort during the testing process, since the verification of UI and database elements will be performed at the same time during execution of the test scripts. A case study is described to analyze the impact of the proposed tool in terms of effort and rate of automation in the development of a new web application project. The results suggest a significant reduction (92% and 88%) in the effort to execute automated tests in database when compared to, respectively, manual and semiautomated execution.