timfox's avatar
timfox
Occasional Visitor
8 years ago
Status:
New Idea

Add an option to allow simpler and faster loading of TC test run logs.

In TC 8, opening a failed test run's log was fast even if the log was very large. The reason it was fast was because TC 8 only loaded into memory enough of the test run's log to populate the Log Items panel and the Project Log panel, e.g. a few seconds at most. I would then use the Log Items panel to drill down to the test item I'm interested in, which again is fast because I'm usually interested in the last test item as that's the one containing the error that caused the test run to fail. And loading that test item was also fairly fast (a few seconds at most) because only one log file was being load, i.e. that of the test item in question.

 

So in TC 8 I could get to the test run's failure point pretty quickly, i.e. less than 30 seconds.

 

However in TC 12, if the log contains one or more errors (and they nearly allows do because who looks at successful test runs), after opening the log TC12 automatically sets focus to the first error in the test run log. This can be very slow if the log is large, e.g. this often takes 5 minutes, and this approach seems to require TC to load the test run's complete set of log files into memory, which explains the slowness.

 

So how about TC having an additional checkbox in TC's Options->Engines->Log page that can be used to enable/disable the automatic setting of focus to the first error in a log when opening a log. The default would be for the checkbox to be enabled, as per current TC 12 functionality.

 

For my company's usage I would typically set the option to disabled, so it behaves more like TC 8.

 

I imagine the code change to honor this option would be small.

 

I expect the existing TC code does something like this:

 

  1. Load the test run's log into the Log Items panel and the Project Log panel.
  2. If (the test run's log contains at least one error) then expand the log and set focus to the 1st error.

 

So my feature request would change it to:

 

  1. Load the test run's log into the Log Items panel and the Project Log panel.
  2. If (new checkbox is enabled) AND (the test run's log contains at least one error) then expand the log and set focus to the 1st error.

, i.e. a relatively small change.

3 Comments

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  • mgroen2's avatar
    mgroen2
    Super Contributor
    8 years ago

    Hi timfox, Although I am not "against" your suggestion, I would say TestComplete should leave handling big data files to specific (better suited tools). Meaning, that I think TC would be much better off supporting writing testresults to SQL database format. And leave opening/handling these SQL db files to specific tools. You can then use specific SQL handling tools for opening these files/databases, like MS SQL Management, HeidiSQL, etc. those tools are dedicated to opening big data files and specialized in handling big data files. In your case that would require the implementation of a pretty simple SQL query on the test results database. SQL queries are fast and flexible.

     

    With that in mind, I think this feature request is an interesting feature request, which you can think of voting for. Microsoft Power BI is a platform you can think of as well. It would allow real time visual representations of your test results.

     

    TestComplete is a testing tool and should focus on supporting the broad range of application frameworks, as well as other things (bug fixes, improvements).

     

     

     

     

  • timfox's avatar
    timfox
    Occasional Visitor
    8 years ago

    Hi mgroen2, I agree that it would be better if TC supported writing the test results log to SQL database format, particularly as it would give you (as you suggested) real time access to the test run's results.

     

    But that would probably be a fairly big feature request, whereas adding the option not to automatically drill to the first error on opening a text run's log is probably a very small change.

  • mgroen2's avatar
    mgroen2
    Super Contributor
    8 years ago
    Hi timfox. thanks for your reaction.
    I agree with you on that. Scoping is different...I guess my suggestion would only become relevant if SmartBear decides for a more major update, redesign of TestComplete.
    While your suggestion could be more relevant for a minor upgrade of the product...
    Having said that even both suggestions could be implemented in future edition of TC...