Launchers

XStudio can execute any kind of tests (scripts, native code, interpreted code, xml etc.). This means that your already existing test suites are usable as they are. The only condition is to develop (in Java) a tiny component allowing XStudio to interact with the test. This piece of code is called the Launcher.


Test management software often require from the customers to contract some services to third-party companies (most of the time the editor itself) to "connect" their tests with the test management system.

This emphasizes severals problems:
  • this has an extremely high cost
  • the customer has not his independance guaranted
  • adapting the system to a new type of test may be costly in terms of time
  • etc.


To avoid this constraints, XStudio provides a complete and extremely simple SDK API that allows you to develop your connector yourself.

This connector is called a "launcher" in the XQual terminology. This is what makes the "link" between the generic test management software (XStudio) and your very specific tests.



Launchers integrate very simply in XStudio's architecture:

launcher architecture



When you finish the development of your launcher, you just need to associate the resulting jar with a category in the test tree through the GUI:

category setting



Note that you can also associate to your jar an XML that describes the configurable parameters for this launcher. At execution or schedule time XStudio will interpret it as a form to let you enter some configuration parameters. Those parameters will be passed to the launcher at run time.

For instance: 

<form name="Timing">
  <formItem type="slider"
            id="0" 
            name="max time between testcases (ms)"
            value="0"
            value="2000"
            min="0"
            max="10000"
            readOnly="false"/>
  <formItem type="boolean"
            id="1" 
            name="prerun and postrun take time to execute"
            value="true"
            readOnly="false"/>
  <formItem type="integer"
            id="2" 
            name="time to execute prerun (ms)"
            value="500"
            readOnly="false"/>
  <formItem type="integer"
            id="3" 
            name="time to execute postrun (ms)"
            value="500"
            readOnly="false"/>
</form>

will be embedded in XStudio's GUI as:


launcher parameters




This mechanism is extremey powerful because it allows you to automate the execution of your tests very rapidely. In most of the cases, only a few tenth of lines of java are sufficient.


You may have different types of test implementation that require completely different approaches to execute them. To each type of test (i.e. tests developed in different languages) corresponds a “category”. For any category of tests you have, you’ll need a specific Launcher.


Several launchers can live together. You just need to add all the necessary launchers (.jar files) in the <Install_folder>/bin/launchers folder.


To get more information on how to develop your own launcher, read the Developer’s guide.


Default launchers

By default, XStudio is provided with several ready-to-use launchers listed in the open-source's launchers section and in this documentation chapter.

All the launchers are detailed below and some of them even include a tutorial to help you running your first test.