Concepts: Structure Testing
Web-based applications, (those employing Internet application technology) are increasingly attractive and popular, especially as this application technology offers organizations the ability to take advantage of several technology related benefits, such as:
- Develop an audience of customers, prospects, and business partners without sending out a single piece of software or paper. Anyone with a browser and access to the 'net (Internet / Intranet) can simply point their browser to the published URL and immediately run the application.
- Centralized control and maintenance. The "thin-client/fat-server" model of web-based applications places the application components and logic on the web server, centralizing and simplifying control and maintenance. This also enables developers to automatically distribute the software, once the application is on the server, it is immediately available for all users to execute.
While offering advantages to those employing this technology, web-based applications increase the demands of testing. Testing of these web-based applications, like their non-web counterparts (client/server, legacy, etc.) requires testing to address the function and performance characteristics of the applications. In addition, however, web-based applications have the added need for tests that focus on the structure of the application, ensuring its well formed and all links are valid.
Web-based applications are typically constructed using a series of documents (both HTML text documents and GIF/JPEG graphics) connected by many static links, and a few active, or program-controlled links. These applications may also include "active content", such as forms, Java scripts, plug-in-rendered content, or Java applications. Frequently this active content is used for output only, such as for audio or video presentation. However, it may also be used for as a navigation aid, helping the user traverse the application (web-site). This free-form nature of the web-based applications (via its links), while being a great strength, is also a tremendous weakness, as structural integrity can easily be damaged.
Structure testing is implemented and executed to verify that all links (static or active) are properly connected. These tests include:
- Verifying that the proper content (text, graphics, etc.) for each link is displayed. Different types of links are used to reference target-content in web-based applications, such as bookmarks, hyperlinks to other target-content (in the same or different web-site), or hot-spots. Each link should be verified to ensure that the correct target-content is presented to the user.
- Ensuring there are no broken links. Broken links are those links for which the target-content cannot be found. Links may be broken for many reasons, including moving, removing, or renaming the target-content files. Links may also be broken due to the use of improper syntax, including missing slashes, colons, or letters.
- Verifying there is no orphaned content. Orphaned content are those files for which there is no "inbound" link in the current web-site, that is, there is no way to access or present the content. Care must be taken to investigate orphaned content to determine the cause - is it orphaned because it is truly no longer needed? Is it orphaned due to a broken link? Or is it accessed by a link external to the current web-site. Once determined, the appropriate action(s) should be taken (remove the content file, repair the broken link, or ignore the orphan, respectively).
