Now at this point I’m going to run TAME and let it generate all possible combinations of inputs. I want to do this just to show you how you can produce lots of test cases through a process we call “combinatorial testing”—that is, forming test cases by making combinations of all of the input choices.
On the TAME site, go back to the My Tests page. There’s an easy link to that under the Hello link in the upper right corner.
Notice it says I have no projects yet. So click the “Upload” link.
And now we can drag the workbook onto the target and press Upload.
If you’re using an older browser, or just prefer the traditional way to upload from the browser, you can click Select Files
and then locate the file to upload it.
Once TAME has processed the file1 you’ll see the TAME Scoreboard. This shows you the workbook, the “scoresheet” that lists all of the test cases TAME generates, the “protocol” document that details each of the steps to be performed, and an XML representation of the protocol2.
I said we wanted to see all of the test cases TAME generated, so click the scoresheet. You can open it directly or save it to your computer.
You’ll see that TAME has generated sixteen test cases.
Sixteen might not seem like a lot of test cases, but a close examination shows that many combinations are redundant. For example, any situation with an empty user ID should produce a “missing user ID” message.
Test cases 5, 6, 7, and 8 all have the Empty User ID and therefore would all produce that same result.
This process of forming all combinations becomes a big problem when we have more inputs and more choices. A more typical test specification with seven inputs and five choices for each input would produce 7 to the 5th power or nearly 17 thousand (16,807 to be exact) test cases—many of which are redundant combinations.
1 If your workbook contains errors, TAME will display an error icon over the workbook. You should correct the errors before continuing.
2 Note that if you uploaded an older Excel format, TAME will generate the older Word .doc format. If you upload an Open Office spreadsheet, TAME will generate an Open Office doc file.