Automated testing of java menu-based GUIs using XML visual editor

A common method for GUI testing is the capture and replay (CR) technique. While the commonly used of CR technique can not be used until an application under test (AUT) is completely developed. In this paper we propose a specification-driven approach to test menu-based Java GUI programs as an alternative to the CR technique. We introduce a GUI-event test specification language based on XML from which an automated test engine is generated. The popularity of XML as a scripting language is ease of use and its standard format. Along with our visual test scripts editor have made writing a test script using our proposed method is easy task. Beside the ability to test AUT before being completely developed, we have implemented another visual module that can generate the test specification file for an already existing AUT by using only the executable file of the program (.class). The engine generates GUI events and captures its responses automatically to verify the results of the test cases, which are written to a test log file. This engine supports the menu-based GUIs that became very popular these days in programs interfaces.