Debugging Test Scripts

Errors encountered during playback can be caused by a variety of factors, such as changes in the application under test (AUT), improper test step flow, or environmental changes. Quickly diagnosing and fixing these errors using debugging features minimizes test maintenance and allows a more efficient team testing effort.

Silk Test Classic automatically raises an exception in response to many of errors or inconsistencies in your scripts and your keyword-driven tests. However, some problems might cause a script or a keyword-driven test to work in unexpected ways without generating an exception. To solve such problems, use the debugger.

Debugging enables you to manage, examine, reset, or step through the actions in a script or keyword-driven test. While debugging, you can specify breakpoints to stop the execution before or after a specific action, and you can examine the values of any local and global variables. You can also enter expressions to evaluate. This lets you identify exactly where an error might be occurring.

You can also use the debugger to find problems in your application under test (AUT). Use the debugging facilities to step through the application and to determine the exact location where a problem occurs.

To start debugging, open the test script or the keyword-driven test script in the editor and click Run > Debug in the Silk Test Classic menu. You can also click Debug in the toolbar.

The debugger enables you to view the results of your testing in the following ways:

You cannot use the debugger from plan (*.pln) files, however, you could call test cases from a main() function and debug the test cases from there.

Note: You cannot modify files while you are using the debugger. To fix a problem in a file, stop the debugger by clicking Debug > Exit in the Silk Test Classic menu.