Re: [Watinfixture-users] Handling of empty strings

[Jeff P. <ka...@iw...>]

Rob,

You bring up a good point.  Unfortunately, the answer isn't always simple.

The problem is that string is a complex type, unlike ints, chars, and other
base types.  Since string is essentially an object, empty string and NULL
are really two different unique values.  In .NET, if you compared "" or
string.Empty with null, they would not be equal.

Null in general means the absence of a value - something that has not been
initialized or set.  For example, a Null coming back from a function could
mean that there was nothing to return.  An empty string, however, may be a
valid return value from the same function - for example, from a database
table.

Also, an empty string may be a valid text response.  For example, if you
trim all alphabetic characters from the word "carrot" you would end up with
an empty string, which in this case has a meaning.

Depending on the context, empty string and Null may be able to be treated
the same.  But then also depending on context, empty string and Null may not
be able to be treated the same.

In this case, being consistent is the key.  Whether verifying the selected
value is blank, or checking the contents and finding a blank, both should be
set up the same by the testers.

Now, as far as ID and other fields go, the use of regular expressions was a
necessity.  ASP.NET generates very complex names, and it would be very
painful if users had to type in those long names all the time.  Instead, the
regular expressions allow a shortened name to be used most of the time.

But you're right, this does pose a risk as well.  Names could end up with
multiple matches if they are too similar.  More than likely the tests will
fail if more than one name is matched.  This is very similar to your
problem, where all the Name properties were the same.  Indeed, a similar
solution may be able to be applied to solve this problem.

If CheckDropdownContents is handling multiple dropdowns of the same name,
this is likely an unintentional by-product of how it was coded.  I would
have expected it to fail.

Hopefully this helps to answer your questions.  WatiNFixture is still a very
young tool, and there is a long way to go before it becomes a mature utility
for the everyday tester.

Jeff 

-----Original Message-----
From: wat...@li...
[mailto:wat...@li...] On Behalf Of Rob
MacFadyen
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 10:51 PM
To: wat...@li...
Subject: [Watinfixture-users] Handling of empty strings

Hey all,

I'm confused about handling of empty strings, especially as applied to
dropdowns.

For UserActions an empty string is just an empty string:
|verify dropdown|x|has||selected|

That passes if there is an empty string selected.

However for CheckDropdownContents this is not the case. To pass the
following must be used:
!|WatiN.Contrib.WatiNFixture.CheckDropdownContents|x|
|dropdownItem|
|x1|
|x2|
|null|

Also... the reporting will report an empty string as "blank"... shouldn't
this be "null" (at least to be consistent within the CheckDropdownContents
fixture)?

So... I'm guessing shouldn't UserActions (et al) have the same handling for
empty strings? Either || or |null| (or |blank|)?


I'm also a bit confused. Are all ID specified as a regular expression? The
CheckDropdownContents fixture clearly expects so... but I'm not sure about
UserActions. What leaves me wondering is... what happens when there is more
than one match? Looking at the code for
UserActions.VerifyDropdownHasSelected it's unclear (doesn't look like it
handles FindByID() returning multiple dropdowns). And looking at
CheckDropdownContents I don't see it handling lists of dropdowns either...
but it clearly does. So... I'm confused. Any suggestions on where I've gone
off the rails?


Regards,

Rob




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