A simple text based full web-page regression testing

Question

My duty is to pick up and continue developing PHP website for a small sized business client. Project has no testing code. I want to quickly establish at least very basic regression testing for the backend of the site.

1. I need to test the full contents of the web page char to char. Must see the diff of failed tests.
2. I need to be able to set up cookies and GET/POST data.
3. Once every few days I am updating the local database from production database. I would like to then have an overview of failed tests and very quickly update my test suits so that everything is passing again.

Is using WatiN or Selenium a good idea? My local environment is Linux.

Answer 1

About Selenium (and only Selenium as I don't know WatiN) - it can only do what you can do in your broswer. It can click, type in fields, submit forms, take screenshots (that's a very good one), set up cookies (so yes to this one). You can always set up GET data through the URL. But I am not aware of any technique in Selenium that would allow you to set up POST data in any other way than navigating in a browser. Also, because the tests are in your browser, they are not particularly fast. E.g, on our product, a single thorough test with ~250 steps takes about 10 minutes on my computer to complete. Of course, you can always divide that between many computers using Selenium Grid. It's just more work.

To conclude it - I'd say yes, Selenium is good for your needs as there are so many ways to write a good test in it that everyone finds his style. It is good for quick checks, functionality affirmations, but also for full-scale tests etc. But if you want to do some really advanced stuff, then that's a job for a long time. Selenium offers so much functionality in so many different ways that it is definitely a full-time job to understand them and know how to use them.

Try Selenium-IDE for 20 minutes. It is just an addon for Firefox that can record your actions and then replay them. If you like what you see, go for it. If no, hire someone who will.

Answer 2

I'm not sure if I am too late here, but in regards to WatiN it is only IE based, so if you plan to use any other browser you are better off with Selenium WebDriver (though WatiN has some Firefox support). From what I have found (I have used both WatiN and Selenium) Selenium can achieve more low level interactions (also see Selenium Grid), but really I think it is dependant on what you are looking to achieve and personal preference. If you have time to write your own wrapper to interact with WatiN/Selenium you will find the tests themselves are rather quick to run. Also, the beauty of Automation is that once these tests are written you can run them and walk away while they complete.