Quest® Code Tester for Oracle
Version 1.8
Release Notes
February 2008
Welcome to Quest Code Tester for Oracle
Quest Code Tester for Oracle is a tool to help you test Oracle code, written
in the PL/SQL language. Code testing is generally acknowledged to be one of the
biggest challenges and disappointments in the world of software. We all know we
should test our code. More than that, we all want to test our code, but there
are many challenges to implementing a strong regression test of our code. These
challenges include having to write a large volume of test code, keeping that
test code in synch with our application code as it changes, verifying the
results of running our tests, and more.
Quest Code Tester for Oracle tackles these challenges by making it easy to
define your tests, generate your test code, and run the tests, all within an
easy-to-use graphical interface. The bottom line with Quest Code Tester: you
don't write test code. You describe your tests, and the tool then generates the
test code (as a PL/SQL package) that implements your test definition.
| Outcome Generator Wizard |
Generate outcome entries based upon a given set of program inputs. This
feature is especially handy when you are not sure what your program is
going to return or the values it returns are so complex you cannot
easily type them in yourself. Provide inputs, generate the outcomes, and
save them directly into the Outcome Grid.
|
| Outcome Wizard | Code Tester provides a wizard interface to create outcomes for your test cases. You can now choose to define an outcome through the grid (faster but less obvious) or the wizard. |
|
utPLSQL Integration |
Register utPLSQL packages inside Quest Code Tester and then run utPLSQL tests along side Code Tester tests.
|
| OS Authentication | You can now log into an Oracle database using your network login when an OS (operating system) user has been created. |
| Quoted Identifiers | Double quotes may be used around a schema object name when using a case sensitive or non-standard name. |
| Instant Debugging Block | Sometimes you run your test and the results are either an unhandled exception or some other unexpected result that indicates a bug. Simply press the Debug Block button and Code Tester will place into the clipboard a block of code that you can paste into your PL/SQL editor to start up a debugging session. |
| Save to Quick Build |
This feature makes it easy to share and re-use complex,
application-specific tests. Simply "save as" Quick Build (test template)
after you have defined your own test case. |
| Conditional Execution | Use this feature to specify the conditions under which a test case or unit test should be skipped. You can provide any PL/SQL expression or SQL query, and also specify that the current test should not run if the previous test failed. Useful for complex workflow processing of tests. |
| Graphical User Interface Enhancements | The interfaces in both Test Dashboard and Test Builder have been simplified to allow for easier and quicker creation and management of tests. |
| New Reporting Features | Reporting capabilities of Code Tester have been greatly expanded. You can run a wide range of existing reports, with output either in plain text or XML formats. You can also build your own reports and integrate them into the Reports interface. |
The following provides a list of issues fixed.
| Bug | Description |
| 2763 | %TYPE for argument leads to -6502 error for long in put value. |
| 2774 | Allow reconnect in Test Builder. |
| 2782 | If query does not identify columns, error is not raised. |
| 2795 | Importing a single test definition from command line access violation. |
| 2809 | If ER query has
more columns than the CBP query, no val. failure. |
| 38147 | Results Viewer not displayed when suite with invalid test definition runs. |
| 38213 | Validation for unique column names causes failures in existing tests. |
| 38220 | Access violation after using Test Data Manager when other CT windows open |
| 38344 | Importing a single test definition from command line causes an access violation. |
|
38981 |
Test Element data type change
not propagated. |
| 41015 | When selecting the default radio button on the Input values screen an error window appears. |
| 43177 | When a Test Case Query contains a comment, the test code will not compile. |
| 44001 | Format '%s' invalid or incompatible with argument. |
| 44084 | Single quote in test data group name corrupts exports. |
| 44253 | Support bundle data collection is truncated - appears due to binary data in Oracle Home registry. |
| 44350 | Single value query test fails on undeclared CV variable. |
| 44380 | When have table is unchanged AND exception outcome, and program raises an exception, get a "table or view does not exist" error for the is unchanged outcome. |
| 44594 | BLOB and RAW inputs causes error in generated code. |
| 45372 | Changes to tables are not correctly rolled back with dynamic test cases. |
The following known issues existed at the time of this release:
|
Display of test definitions inside suites |
The schema drop-down determines which programs and suites you can see in the lists (only those created in that schema). This means that if your suite contains programs owned by more than one schema, you will not be able to see/run all those programs in the suite. For now, you should create a separate suite for each set of programs defined in a given schema. |
|
Unicode Support |
Code Tester should work correctly when the database server character set is defined as multi-byte, the client is defined as single-byte, and all characters used to name database objects use a subset of the single byte character set in use on the client. Extensive testing has not been performed on this configuration. |
|
Entering SELECT Statements |
When you enter a SELECT statement for a query, that query must not have any leading comments. Nor can it have a terminating semi-colon. These will cause compile errors in the resulting test code.
|
| Support for CLOBs |
Limited support for CLOBs: Quest Code Tester for Oracle generates test code, but you can only use VARCHAR2-compatible values in your tests. In addition, you can write an export file with a >32K string, but will not be able to import that definition. See the Help document for more information on troubleshooting export/import issues. |
|
Unsupported Datatypes |
Quest Code Tester will not be able to build tests for arguments of the following types:
You will need to write your customized tests against these elements, by either defining an expression or Boolean outcome and then building all the necessary code to define the test. When testing the contents of tables, views and queries, Code Tester can only analyze the contents of columns that can be referenced in UNION and MINUS operations. So, for example, a table with a CLOB column cannot be directly analyzed for equality with another dataset. Code Tester will automatically ignore any columns that cannot be used in the comparisons. |
|
Testing contents of tables with non-scalar columns |
Quest Code Tester does not perform dataset comparison checks for tables with CLOB columns and other complex datatypes. Instead, Code Tester will automatically ignore any columns of these types that cannot be used in the comparisons. |
| Testing the Contents of Cursor Variables | When testing the contents of cursor variables with very large numbers of rows, you may receive a "ORA-04030: out of process memory" error. This occurs because Quest Code Tester users nested tables to cache the cursor variable result set. You will need to reduce the number of rows analyzed in your test to avoid this issue. |
|
Test data values consisting of very large strings
|
Test data values (values in Test Data Groups) cannot have more than 32,512 characters in them. While PL/SQL officially supports variable length strings of up to 32K (32767) characters, when using dynamic SQL the limit is reduced to 32,512. When working with Test Data Groups, Quest Code Tester applies those values using dynamic SQL, thus hitting the lower limit. |
| "Records Equal" function field names |
When you are comparing record contents to a query, the column names in the query must match those of the record field names. Then the automatically generated records-equal function will compile and work properly. |
| Tablespace Availability for Installation | Quest Code Tester performs some basic analysis to determine if you have sufficient tablespace available to install the product. This calculation is not always accurate, however, you may run out of space. The installer will notify you that the installation fails, but it will not report specifically on this error. If you have an install error, please check the qu_install.log file for tablespace errors. If present, you will need to install into a different tablespace or ask your DBA for more space. |
|
Creating test definition by two different users
|
You can encounter a blocked Quest Code Tester session by doing the following: user A starts up Test Builder for program XYZ, to create a new test definition for this program. User B then tries to open Test Builder for the same program. User B will be blocked until user A completes their work. Then user B will receive an error, because the test definition already exists (by this time). |
| Import test definition to different schema | When you export a test definition, you can specify that you want the export owner set to the owner to which the test will be imported. This step will remove most but not necessarily all of the schema names in the test definition. Some may still be prefixed on packaged types, such as collection types and record types. This will cause compile errors on the test code. Solution: go into your test definition and change/remove those schema names, or edit the export file directly. |
| Specifying times for TIMESTAMP | You may not enter sub-second values in your timestamp value. Quest Code Tester only supports time specifications down to the nearest second. |
| Not connecting to ORACLE message |
When adding customization logic to turns on DBMS profiling and running a test, you may encounter an ORA-03114: not connected to ORACLE message or an ORA-03113: end of file on communication channel error message and find that they have been disconnected from the database. This is an Oracle bug in the profiler logic and occurs inconsistently. |
| Object type inputs | If your IN argument is an object type, you cannot specify an input value directly. Instead you must write the assignment to set up that input value via initialization code (at the input or test case levels). |
| Testing the value of a BLOB | When testing the value of a BLOB, Code Tester will allow you to specify normal scalar tests for the BLOB (such as equality and inequality checks). The generated code, however, will not compile. If you want to test a BLOB out argument, you will need to create a Boolean expression test and then write code (usually a function) to analyze your BLOB and return TRUE or FALSE. |
Before installing Quest Code Tester for Oracle, ensure your system meets the following minimum hardware and software requirements:
| Platform | 1.0 GHz x86 compatible CPU |
| Memory | 512 MB of RAM recommended |
| Hard Disk Space | 40 MB of disk space for installation |
| Operating System | Microsoft®Windows® 2000, 2003, XP Professional |
| Database/Client Versions | Oracle 9i Database Release 2 (9.2.0.6 or above), Oracle Database 10g, and Oracle Express Edition. |
| Required Database Privileges |
The schema in which you install Quest Code Tester must have these privileges: CREATE PROCEDURE CREATE SEQUENCE CREATE SESSION CREATE SYNONYM CREATE TABLE CREATE TRIGGER CREATE VIEW CREATE TYPE Note 1: Quest Code Tester will create a schema with the necessary privileges as part of the installation process, when the create new user and install into new user schema option is selected on Step 2 of the Repository Wizard. Note 2: We recommend that you install Quest Code Tester into its own schema, and create public synonyms so that all developers will be able to use Quest Code Tester and share their test definitions. This will also help you keep application code distinct from the Quest Code Tester code base. To do this, your schema must also have CREATE and DROP PUBLIC SYNONYM privileges. |
This section contains information about installing and operating this product in non-English configurations, such as those needed by customers outside of North America. This section does not replace the materials about supported platforms and configurations found elsewhere in the product documentation.
This release supports any single-byte character set. Double-byte or multi-byte character sets are not supported. In this release, all product components should be configured to use the same or compatible character encodings and should be installed to use the same locale and regional options. This release is targeted to support operations in the following regions: North America, Western Europe and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe.
The Quest Code Tester for Oracle release package contains the following items:
a. Online Help
b. Release notes
| info@quest.com | |
| Quest Software, Inc. World Headquarters 5 Polaris Way Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 USA |
|
| Web |
Refer to our Web site for regional and international office information.
Quest Support is available to customers who have a trial version of a Quest product or who have purchased a commercial version and have a valid maintenance contract.
Quest Support provides around the clock coverage with SupportLink, our web self-service. Visit SupportLink at http://support.quest.com.
From SupportLink, you can do the following:
View the Global Support Guide for a detailed explanation of support programs, online services, contact information, and policy and procedures.
The guide is available at: http://support.quest.com/pdfs/Global Support Guide.pdf.
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