Towards automated oracles for GUI input validation

Testing input validation in web applications from specifications is a challenging and laborious process. GUI testing tools - with their record-and-playback and data-driven capabilities - ease the pains of testing through automation. Out-of-the-box, however, these tools have some scaling limitations as setup costs are incurred for every distinct web application to test. In environments where a line of many web applications are regularly created for various customers and purposes, scaling the test automation to span the entire product line is extremely valuable. In this paper, we report on our experience in generalizing the automatic specification-based testing of input validation in a line of web applications. Our approach is based on a nonstandard use of a GUI testing tool enabled by adjustments to coding standards and the requirements specification writing process.