NATURAL LANGUAGE ASSERTION

• US 20120072823A1
• Filed: 09/16/2010
• Published: 03/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: LAU, TESSA A., MAHMUD, JALAL U.
• Granted Patent: US 9,715,483 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3684 for test design, e.g. generating new test cases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/311 Functional or applicative languages; Rewrite languages
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45512 Command shells

Abstract

A method, a system, and a computer medium for testing may be provided. An instruction including a natural language assertion statement may be received. The instruction may be parsed. The natural language assertion statement may be evaluated to true or false.

Claims

1. A method for testing comprising the following machine-implemented steps:

receiving an instruction including a natural language assertion statement;

parsing the instruction; and

evaluating the natural language assertion statement to true or false.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the natural language assertion statement identifies via natural language a user interface element within a user interface.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the natural language assertion statement specifies a test for the user interface element within the user interface.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the user interface comprises a rendering of a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the evaluating further comprises analyzing a Document Object Model (DOM) of the HTML document.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising modifying the DOM of the HTML document based on a result of the evaluating.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the test for the user interface element tests whether the user interface contains a widget having a specified property.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the widget is a button and the specified property is a text label.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the natural language assertion statement evaluates to true if the user interface does not contain the widget having the specified property.

10. The method of claim 2, including indicating whether the natural language assertion statement evaluates to true or false.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the indicating includes highlighting the user interface element.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the graphical user interface is described by a HTML document and the model is a Document Object Model for the HTML document.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the natural language assertion statement specifies whether the graphical user interface contains an element with the property.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the element is a HTML tag.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the element is a user interface widget.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the user interface widget is a button and the property is a label.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the element is an area of the graphical user interface and the property is a textual description.

12. A natural language scripting system comprising:

a script parsing module machine-operable to parse an instruction including a natural language assertion statement that specifies a property within a graphical user interface for testing;

a model interaction module operable to analyze a model describing elements of the graphical user interface; and

an assertion evaluation module operable to evaluate the natural language assertion statement to true or false based on analysis of the model.

19. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable code embodied therewith, the computer readable code comprising:

code to receive a natural language instruction including a condition and an indication of a user interface element of a computer application;

code to parse the instruction to determine the user interface element; and

code to determine whether the user interface element meets the condition.

20. The storage medium of claim 19, wherein the user interface element meets the condition if the user interface element is displayed on a user interface of the computer application.