What our R&D team needs to deal with most is various new demands. The faster and faster update speed of software has also made the entire system more and more complex, which makes testing work face huge challenges. Testers must communicate with developers to determine the scope of testing and obtain the latest interface use case data in a timely manner to verify functionality. However, because requirements change too frequently, the test scope cannot keep up with the interface update speed in time, causing many potential problems to be missed, affecting the quality of the software.
The traditional static testing model greatly affects the work experience. As a professional API interface management platform, Apifox provides a series of visualization and automation functions that can effectively help testers deal with these challenges .
For example, we are developing an online medical Q&A platform that provides hundreds of service interfaces. In order to fully test all functions, testers need to spend a lot of time writing and debugging test cases, and also need to manually write automated test scripts. But if we use Apifox, we can quickly generate test cases that match the core logic of the interface on the easy-to-use visual interface management page, arrange the order of interface tests by dragging and dropping, and generate automated testing strategies . Even if the interface changes, the system can adjust test cases in real time. In addition, Apifox also provides CI/CD embedded commands to help teams achieve fully automated test execution and regression .
Jointly and efficiently maintain automated test cases
In the same company, different R&D teams use different technologies and tools, resulting in data isolation being the norm. The most common situation is that the interface function is updated, but the interface documentation is old and outdated, which makes testers spend a lot of time on data confirmation and synchronization. They often need to confirm the latest interface information with development engineers, which is very laborious and laborious.
After the developer defines the interface document of the new function on Swagger, the tester needs to manually copy the parameters and write the expected response results, and then use the testing tool to send the request and compare the results. Whenever product requirements change, the interface needs to be adjusted, which makes testers miserable. Because they need to spend a lot of time manually comparing interface documents and test cases, and after confirmation, they work overtime to send interface requests one by one and verify the results in order to meet the release deadline. How can this collaboration gap be effectively resolved?
In Apifox, development only needs to maintain interface documents in "Interface Management", and testing can easily import use cases in the "Automated Testing" module without having to repeatedly check the data. Click the synchronization button to seamlessly connect old and new data, get rid of the boring work of data synchronization, and fully devote yourself to the core testing process and create new value .
Taking the scenario of " verifying whether the registration and posting process of ordinary users on the platform meets expectations " as an example, testers can directly import user-related interfaces in "automated testing". When importing the interface, specify the synchronization method as "manual synchronization" or "automatic synchronization", both of which can make the data synchronization process more efficient.
Automatic mode enables real-time synchronization of interface documents and test scenario data. When developers modify the request method in the "User Cancel Favorites" functional interface on Apifox, all changes will be immediately synchronized to the test steps to ensure that the data in "Interface Management" and "Automated Testing" are consistent.
If you are worried that existing test data will be affected after developing and updating the interface, you can choose the synchronization method to " manual mode " to grasp the synchronization timing. The test can first confirm whether the data changes are correct, and then easily click the sync button to seamlessly import the latest interface data into the test. In this way, you can get rid of boring data processing and focus more on the interface testing work itself. Automated testing and interface management achieve true dynamic collaboration.
Simulate real scenarios and orchestrate API test sequences
When accessing the medical information Q&A platform, you usually need to follow the following process: Register - Browse/Create a question - Leave feedback . Sometimes, when we test each interface individually, it responds normally. But when we chain them together to perform tests, we encounter some tricky problems. For example, after registration, the system did not return the correct Token value, causing all subsequent operations that required login to fail.
In order to better simulate the production environment, testers need to clarify the dependencies between interface functions. For example, which functions require users to register before they can be executed. Only in this way can we truly restore the user scenario and fully verify the stability of the system.
In order to improve test efficiency and coverage, test execution logic can be flexibly arranged, such as adding grouping, looping, conditional branching, waiting time and other conditions to the test steps . Grouping can organize related use cases by modules; loops can simulate repetitive processes such as user browsing or refreshing; conditional judgments can verify different response paths; and reasonable waiting times can simulate more realistic user behavior.
The combination of these execution control measures can achieve comprehensive automatic verification of business scenarios. It not only saves a lot of manual operations, but also can sustain high-intensity execution, which has a good guarantee effect on system quality.
Relevant external security isolation data-driven testing
To protect security, developers should avoid filling in any sensitive information in interface documents. If user-related API keys, database connection strings, etc. are involved, they should be extracted into independent external security files for unified management. This is a challenge for testers because it means that in some cases, data needs to be imported into test cases one by one for testing.
In Apifox, testers only need to add an external data set to the "test scenario" and use the environment variables in the interface in conjunction with the external data set to dynamically reference sensitive data such as keys and tokens in the data set . When the test scenario is run, the system will loop through all the data sets in the data file, extract the data in the data set and assign it to the corresponding variables.
Multiple sets of test data sets can be saved in a test scenario, and the external data to be used for this test can be selected in "Test Data".
Easily develop automated testing strategies
Before officially running automated tests, testers also need to ensure the following configurations:
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Test step sequence
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Operating environment
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Cycles
Changes and switching of environments will always bring a lot of workload to testers. Developers use test environment A locally, while testers need to use test environment B to conduct overall system testing . The domain names, configurations, and data of the two are different.
Every time a certain configuration change is made, a test environment needs to be re-established. Testers are busy here and there just to repeatedly migrate the entire data and reconfigure the automation tools.
In the automated testing function of Apifox, testers can switch the running environment with one click without frequently changing the environment, thus changing all the pre-URLs in the test steps in batches without repeatedly adjusting test parameters and modifying test cases. Combined with the "scenario instance" function, data such as test cases can also be saved in a modular manner with one click. In the advanced settings, you can also specify parameter information such as global cookies to simulate real requests as much as possible. After confirming that everything is correct, the tester can click the "Run" button to start the automated testing process.
Scenario instances can reuse test parameters
In a test scenario used by a medical information Q&A platform, the process orchestration is basically fixed. However, in actual testing, there are different servers (test environment, formal environment, etc.) and different account types (doctor users, ordinary users) . These differences in operating parameters will affect the final operating results. By saving multiple sets of running configurations through the "Save as Scenario Instance" function, you can run test scenarios according to test requirements with one click and produce test results that meet the requirements. There is no need to frequently switch operating parameters to perform test tasks .
For example, there are the following scenarios:
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The formal environment requires real data, and the test environment requires simulated data.
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Physician user scenario requires additional independent data to verify differences
In Apifox, we only need to set up multiple scene instances to achieve efficient automation through parameterization and reuse. It can not only simulate different data, but also perform verification repeatedly to ensure test quality.
Integrate into automated workflows within your team
Many R&D teams have established continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) automated workflows and regularly execute test scenarios to ensure stable system operation. Every time a new feature is released, perform automated regression testing to avoid potential risks. However, in order to implement automatic regression testing after each release, testers need to manually call the CI process of the test script. Not only is this time consuming, it also requires constant adjustments to the pipeline configuration based on test cases.
The command line tool (CLI) provided by Apifox has many built-in efficient testing capabilities and can be better integrated into the team's existing automated workflow. Testers can generate configuration code for Jenkins and Github Actions with just one click in the Continuous Integration module.
Add embedded code in the command line editor of Jenkins or Github Actions, and after running the continuous integration task, the test scenario in Apifox will be automatically executed.
Visualization of test results
After the automated test process is completed, an intuitive test report will be output. Testers can visually see the pass rate and failure reasons of the interface here. The test report supports exporting in HTML format. After the test task is completed, click the "Export Report" button to trigger the automatic download.
In the above test example of the medical information question and answer platform, Apifox's powerful automated testing function can help testers say goodbye to repetitive manual testing and complete testing tasks faster, thus saving a lot of time while maintaining quality . The same tool brings higher consistency, allows the stability and repeatability of testing to reach a high standard, and can well achieve the goal of "quickly reproducing software defects". You can also learn more about the use of automated testing functions in the help documentation to help you implement more efficient testing projects.
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Software Testing Interview Document
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