I’ve written automated UI tests using Selenuim running against a large ASP.NET Web 2.0 ERP application with great success. However, IMO the single biggest productivity killer for writing such tests is ASP.NET WebForms ID name mangling where ID’s are changed from something like "lblSysMText" at design time to "ctl00_cphContents_dlMessages_ctl01_lblSysMText" at runtime. Fortunately, Selenuim supports the use of XPATH expressions so searching for the above tag can be done using the following:
//span[contains(@id, "lblSysMText")] Name mangling is a huge problem and thwarts all sorts of automated test tools whether you’re using AutomatedQA's TestComplete or a something like Selenuim. Whenever you have a situation where a simple containership change like moving a control into a DIV can break an automated test you’ve got a problem. These sorts of changes occur all the time on WebForms which are actively being developed meaning unless your tests are written using a partial match logic, like what I’ve illustrated above, you’ll be faced with lots of bogus failures which not only kill productivity but undermine your test automation efforts as the tests will be viewed as fragile and a waste of time.
MVC to the Rescue
Scott Guthrie wrote:
This model view controller (MVC) framework for ASP.NET provides a structured model that enables a clear separation of concerns within web applications, and makes it easier to unit test your code and support a TDD workflow. It also helps provide more control over the URLs you publish in your applications, and more control over the HTML that is emitted from them.
With the MVC framework name mangling will be a thing of the past. I believe not only will the MVC framework make unit testing easier it will be a major win for automated UI testing for ASP.NET apps. You’ll no longer have to jump through hoops to figure out the ID of a given tag on the page.
Last but not least, with MVC style development you’ll finally be able to use ID’s like #lblSysMText in your CSS again.
