Language Definition Part 1: Grouping Actions and Assertions

by Jon Cram

Grouping Actions and Assertions

We previously summarised the components of a test and created a simple test in plain English. Let’s now look at how grouping actions and assertions make things just a little more clear.

Our Previous Plain English Test

Towards the end of the previous article in this series we created a plain-English test for opening Google and then performing a search.

Open up https://google.com in Chrome.

  • Verify that the page is open
    1. Assert that the page title is “Google”
    2. Assert that the page url is “https://google.com”
  • Search for “Example”
    1. Enter “Example” into the search box
    2. Click the “Google Search” button
    3. Assert that the page title is “Example - Google Search”
    4. Assert that the page url contains “https://www.google.com/search”
    5. Assert that the page url contains “q=example”

This should be clear enough for any competent web tester to run manually in a browser. That doesn’t mean we can’t make it better.

Actions Come Before Assertions

Within a given step (such as Search for “Example” above), actions always come before assertions.

The behaviour that we are modelling takes the general form of: do something, then check if it worked. We might not always want to do something first, but if we do we must do it before checking if it worked.

Open up https://google.com in Chrome.

  • Verify that the page is open

    Assertions

    • Page title is “Google”
    • Page url is “https://google.com”

  • Search for “Example”

    Actions

    • Enter “Example” into the search box
    • Click the “Google Search” button

    Assertions

    • Page title is “Example - Google Search”
    • Page url contains “https://www.google.com/search”
    • Page url contains “q=example”

Three main changes here:

  • we can’t accidentally try to perform an action between assertions
  • we don’t need to number statements, they are performed in the order in which they are written
  • we don’t need to prefix every single assertion with ‘assert that …’

We’ve made it clear we’re following a do something, then check if it worked approach. We’ve made it clear where actions and assertions go within a step. We’ve made our assertion statements less verbose.

These improvements make the test easier for us to follow and understand. As a bonus this is one step closer to making the test easier for a computer to parse.

Doing Things One Way and One Way Only

How can you describe the action of entering text into a search box?

  • Enter ‘Example’ into the search box
  • Fill the search box with ‘Example’
  • Type ‘Example’ into the search box

The next article in this series will look at picking one verb per type of action to further remove ambiguity.