Web Testing for Reliability Improvement - Advances in Computers - page 189

relevant standards and external specifications. Specific types of functionality testing
include:
HTML syntax and/or style checking : HTML validators, such as Weblint ( www.
weblint.org ) , W3C Validator ( validator.w3.org ) , and CSSCheck ( www.htmlhelp.
com/tools/csscheck/ ) , can parse HTML files and check their conformance to
relevant language specifications and document standards.
Link checking can be performed to check the entire site for broken links, with
the help of tools like Net Mechanic ( www.netmechanic.com ) . This is similar
to link coverage testing in FSM-based testing described later in this section for
testing web navigations, but without formally constructing an FSM.
Form testing checks input types and variable names in various forms, with the
help of tools such as Doctor HTML ( www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML ) . This
can be considered as rudimentary input domain testing based on a simple check-
list [48] .
Verification of end-to-end transactions , which is similar to testing complete exe-
cution paths in control flow testing or transaction processing in transaction flow
testing [6] .
Java and other component testing : Java applets, which work on the clients side,
or other Java applications, which work on the server side, need to be tested,
similar to traditional software testing. Similarly, other programming languages
used for various web-based facilities, such as C/C++, Visual Basic, etc., can
also be checked for syntax, decisions, etc.
Various tools or tool suites are also available to support a combination of vari-
ous functionality and regression testing, including SilkTest ( www.segue.com ) , Astra
QuickTest ( www.mercury.com ) , eTester ( www.rswsoftware.com ) , etc. Besides the
basic web elements that need to be tested above, some specific web aspects that cut
through several web elements also need to be tested, including:
Load testing is a subset of stress (or performance) testing. It verifies that a web
site can handle a large number of concurrent users while maintaining acceptable
response time.
The focus of usability testing is the ease-of-use issues of different web designs,
overall layout, and navigations [3,11,29] , which is different from our reliability
focus in this chapter. Such testing relies heavily on subjective preferences of
selected users.
Browser rendering problems may affects the delivery as well as presentation of
web contents. For example, HTML files that look good on one browser may
look bad on another. We need to make sure that the web site functions appropri-