Abstract: Current practice in Web application development is based on the skills of the individual programmers and often does not apply the principles of software engineering. The increasing economic relevance and internal complexity of the new generation of Web applications require that proper quality standards are reached and that development is kept under control. It is therefore likely that the formalization of the process followed while developing these applications will be one of the major research topics. In this paper we focus on Web application testing, a crucial phase when quality and reliability are a goal. Testing is considered in the wider context of the whole development process, for which an incremental/iterative model is devised. The processes behind the testing activities are analyzed considering the specificity of Web applications, for which the availability of a reference model is shown to be particularly important. The approach proposed in this paper covers the integration testing phase, which can take advantage of some features of Web applications (e.g., the http protocol employed), thus resulting in a higher level of automation with respect to traditional software. The testing processes described in this paper are supported by the prototype research tool TestWeb. This tool exploits a reverse engineered UML (Unified Modeling Language) model of the Web application to generate and execute test cases, in order to satisfy the testing criteria selected by the user. The usage of this tool will be presented with reference to a real-world case study.

Abstract: One of the most provocative research areas in software engineering field is the testing of modern component based distributed applications in order to assure required quality parameters Dynamic interactions and structural embedding, run-time loadable configurations, and services that can be deployed in arbitrary executions environments results in an increased complexity Moreover, that the variety of possible states and behaviors becomes unpredictable Thus, since testing during the development phase is always applied in simulated environments, it is almost impossible to detect faults, which appear under real condition, during production phase of a system We therefore aim at concepts and methodologies that achieve on-line testing of distributed component based systems in their production phase In comparison with off-line testing (ie testing that takes place during system development), on-line testing addresses particular aspects of the behavior of distributed systems, such as: functionality under limited time and resources available, complex transactions that are performed between components provided by different vendors, deployment, and composition of different services

Abstract: As testing has always been our primary device to gain the confidence in the correctness, robustness, and reliability of a system, a typical issue in web engineering is how to automate effective testing on web applications. Many factors have contributed to the new dimensions of the complexity in the automated testing in this regard. Here we present our work in progress towards the specification-based testing of the presentation logic in web applications. This work is realized by extending an existing testing technique for window-based applications.

Abstract: Web sites are becoming increasingly complex as more and more services and information are made available over the Internet and intranets. At the same time, the correct behavior of sites has become crucial to the success of businesses and organizations and thus should be tested thoroughly and frequently. Although traditional software testing is already a notoriously hard, time-consuming and expensive process, testing Web sites presents even greater challenges: Web interfaces are very dynamic; the environment of Web applications is more complex than that of typical monolithic or client-server applications; Web applications, most notably e-commerce sites, have a large number of users who have no training on how to use the application and hence are more likely to exercise it in unpredictable ways. Existing testing tools for automating the process of testing dynamic Web sites require the specification of test scenarios, which results in limited test coverage. In this paper, we present an overview of VeriWeb, a tool for automatically discovering and systematically exploring Web-site execution paths that can be followed by a user in a Web application. Unlike traditional crawlers which are limited to the exploration of static links, VeriWeb can navigate automatically through dynamic components of Web sites, including form submissions and execution of client-side script.