Lately, I have been involved in the development of a new reusable VoiceXML dialog module. The module is invoked via a <subdialog> call with a number of parameters, one of which having an impact on the order of the questions asked by the module.
Writing automated test scripts for such parameterized applications or modules is too often a very time-consuming task. One has to take the order of questions into account, leading to an explosion in the number of scenarios and lots of duplication. In such cases, you often end up testing a single configuration, assuming that all others will be only small variations that need not be tested. But is it really safe to do that?
One of the nice features of NuBot is the ability to write test scenarios that are robust to the order in which questions are asked. To do that, test scenarios need only be created in wraparound mode. Each scenario is composed of action groups, each of which consists in an association between a state in the application and an answer to give to the tested application.
In the wraparound mode, when NuBot receives a feedback from the application, it looks at its next group. If the feedback does not match the expected action group, instead of generating an error, it simply skips it and considers the next one, and so on. If it reaches the end of the scenario’s groups, it “wraps around” (thus the mode name) and considers the groups from the start of the scenario in turn. Only if it cannot match a step in the scenario will it generate an error.
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