SilkTest Question 43: How to count the number of open browsers?

Let’s assume that interviewer for Software Quality Assurance Engineer position wants you to implement the function for counting number of browsers which he recently opened on his/her computer. No one knows the real need for such function, because average tester prefers to work just with one browser and as a part of test case preparation would close all remaining Internet Explorers or Firefoxes. The first question to ask is what type of browser do you want to check and after meaningful answer you can create something like following function written in 4test language which returns the required number for Internet Explorer.


integer GetBrowserCount ()
integer browsers = 1
while (MainWin ("$explorer6_DOM[{browsers}]").Exists ())
browsers ++
return (browsers -1)

SilkTest Question 42: How to get substring of the string variable?

Imagine you have a string variable that holds the sixteen digits MasterCard or Visa debit card number. Can you name one of the many ways to obtain string with last four digits during run time?

The QA engineer may use multiple ways to get for testing purposes last four digits from sixteen digits string. Let’s name for practical purpose variables name with credit card number as sMCnumber and result string as sResult. The following two lines of 4test code would return the same test result:

sResult=Right (sMCnumber,4)
sResult=Substr(sMCnumber,13,4)

By the way I used one of the best practices to name string variables on 4test script.

SilkTest Question 41: What is the latest version of Silktest?

In the preparation for interviewing, I like to review the resume of potential QA Tester candidate to verify time line of using correct version of SilkTest tool and if I see something like "Automated regression testing of new builds utilizing Segue SilkTest" dated between 2000-2002, I would definitely ask about version of automated test tool you were using back then. So I would recommend updating as soon as possible your QA resume with published below short version of Silktest releases.

• June, 2012 - Borland SilkTest 13
• November, 2011 - Micro Focus SilkTest 2011
• May, 2011 - Micro Focus SilkTest 2010 R2 WS 2
• December, 2010 - Micro Focus SilkTest 2010 R2
• July, 2010 - Micro Focus SilkTest 2010
• August 12, 2009 - SilkTest 2009
• July, 2008 - SilkTest 2008 SP1
• April, 2008 - SilkTest 2008
• September, 2007 - SilkTest 2006 R2 Service Pack 2
  
• June, 2007 - SilkTest 2006 Release 2 Service Pack 1
  
• January, 2007 - Silk Test 2006 R2
  
• September, 2006 - SilkTest 2006
• May, 2006 - SilkTest 8.0
• September, 2005 - SilkTest 7.6
• June, 2005 - SilkTest 7.5
• October, 2004 - SilkTest 7.1
• November 2003, - SilkTest 6.5
• November 2002, - SilkTest 6.0
• September 1999, - SilkTest 5.0.1
• November 1996, - QA partner 4.0 as part of QualityWorks client/server testing suite

What is the latest version of QuickTest Professional?

How can QA engineer execute SilkTest from the command line?

The interview question 34 was updated with SilkTest tips on running tool for automated testing on Microsoft Windows 2003 server shipped by default with enabled Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration.

Open position for automation tool specialist

More then two productive testing months have passed and three more fully tested software applications were shipped to customers of our Software Quality Assurance department since I compared the job postings for QA Engineer position with automated testing tool experience on the following job search engines: dice.com and craigslist.org (for craigslist search is local, only for San Francisco Bay Area)

Dice.com

• Silktest - 68; 164; 175; 180; 184.
• Winrunner - 514; 519; 537; 516; 460.

Craigslist.org

• Silktest - 17; 23; 26; 33; 17.
• Winrunner – 28; 27; 30; 30, 21

The tracking of job posting started in April, 2006. The statistics for August and September were missed due to performance impact of testing and production environment issues.