Use of XRunner for Automation

Abstract

XRunner, a UNIX, client-server based, automated record-replay test tool developed by Mercury Interactive Corporation, was used by a project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to automate intensive GUI/window-driven satellite operations functions. This work was part of the Integrated Monitoring, Analysis and Control COTS System (IMACCS), a COTS integration prototype development effort. XRunner, running in its object-oriented context sensitive mode, recorded the window/push-button images of significant events in spacecraft operations with sequential steps and generated test script language (TSL) for subsequent replay or test verification. The recorded TSL was optimized such that scenario replay timing, sequencing, grouping, and UNIX interactions became simple, easily-automated tasks instead of manually intensive, error-prone operations. This feature of the XRunner tool is expected to greatly enhance operations and testing.