Test automation - Misplaced Pages

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Test automation is the use of software to control the execution of tests, the comparison of actual outcomes to predicted outcomes, the setting up of test preconditions, and other test control and test reporting functions.

Over the past few years, tools that help programmers quickly create applications with graphical user interfaces have dramatically improved programmer productivity. This has increased the pressure on testers, who are often perceived as bottlenecks to the delivery of software products. Testers are being asked to test more and more code in less and less time. Test automation is one way to do this, as manual testing is time consuming. As and when different versions of a software are released, the new features will have to be tested manually time and again. But, now there are tools available that help the testers in the automation of the GUI which reduce the test time as well as the cost, other test automation tools support execution of performance tests.

Many test automation tools provide record and playback features that allow users to record interactively user actions and replay it back any number of times, comparing actual results to those expected.

A growing trend in software development is to use testing frameworks such as the JUnit or NUnit frameworks which allow the code to conduct unit tests to determine whether various sections of the code are acting as expected in various circumstances. Test cases describe tests that need to be run on the program to verify that the program runs as expected. In a properly tested program, there is at least test in the software code designed to satisfy a unit test requirement.