Author: Mandakinee

Defect Management Process in Software QA/QC

Posted on by Mandakinee

A defect is an error or bug found in the application. A programmer while designing and developing the software could make mistake. These mistakes or errors are also termed as faults in the software.

While testing a software application or product, if the actual result deviates from the expected result then it is termed as defect.

A Software defect / bug is a condition in software which does not meet the requirement or end-user expectation.

Defect Management Process:

Defect management process includes the following steps:

Identify
This step involves detecting a defect. The person noticing the defect is mostly someone in the testing team. In the real world, it can be anyone including individuals in the project team, or even the end-user(customer).

Category
When a defect is reported, it is assigned to a designated team member to confirm that the defect is actually a defect as opposed to an enhancement, or other appropriate category. Once categorized, the defect moved into the process flow and the next step is to prioritize it.

Priority
Priority is based on combination of the severity of impact on the usability, relative effort to fix, along with a comparison against other defects. The priority should be determined with representatives of the customer and the project team.

Assign
Once a defect has been prioritized, it is then assigned to a developer or other technical person to fix.

Resolve
The developer fixes (resolves) the defect and follows the organization’s process to deploy the fixed code to the environment where the defect was originally identified.

Verify
Depending on the environment where the defect was found and the fix was applied, the software testing team or customer verifies that the fix is actually resolved the defect.

Close
Once a defect has been resolved and verified, the defect is marked as closed.

Defect report or Bug report consists of the following information:

  • Defect_ID – Every bug or defect has its unique identification number
  • Defect Description – This includes the abstract of the issue.
  • Product Version – This includes the product version of the application in which the defect is found.
  • Description – This includes the detailed steps to be followed to re-create the issue with the screenshots attached so that developers can recreate it easily.
  • Date Raised – Date when the bug is reported
  • Reported By – This includes who reported the bug like tester Name and ID
  • Status – This field includes the Status of the defect like New, Assigned, Open, Re-test, Verification, Closed, Failed, Deferred, etc.
  • Fixed by – This field includes the details of the developer who fixed it like Name and ID
  • Date Closed – Date when the bug is closed
  • Severity: Based on the severity (Critical, Major or Minor) it tells us about impact of the defect or bug in the software application
  • Priority: Based on the Priority set (High/Medium/Low) the order of fixing the defect can be made.

See Also: How to identify Cross Site Scripting (XSS) Vulnerabilities threat

Defect management process or bug tracking is an integral part of our Quality Assurance process. Avail our QA services not just for projects done by us but also for projects done by you or your vendors.

I hope you enjoyed this topic, if you have any questions or comments please share below!

How To Do Custom Pagination In CakePHP

Posted on by Mandakinee

Sometimes we need to do pagination in CakePHP using a traditional SQL query, thereby the CakePHP predefined pagination functionality is lost.

We can implement pagination method in the Model or Behavior when we are using standard SQL query in CakePHP. Just need to make sure that the result cannot be obtained with core model methods, or a custom finder before implementing custom queries pagination.

But we can’t just use the standard pagination on the custom queries, we have to override the paginate functions in model or behavior.

To use our own method/logic to override the CakePHP pagination in the model, we need to add two functions: paginate() and paginateCount().

In these functions, we can implement our own paginate logic.

Overriding paginate() function in CakePHP Post Model:

[php]public function paginate($conditions, $fields, $order, $limit, $page = 1, $recursive = null, $extra = array()) {
$orderStr = ”;
foreach($order as $k => $ord) {
$orderStr[] = $k . ‘ ‘ . $ord;
}
$orderStr = ‘ORDER BY ‘. implode(‘, ‘, $orderStr);

$qryCond = ‘1’;
if (isset($conditions[‘Post.title LIKE’])) {
$qryCond = ‘title LIKE \”.$conditions[‘Post.title LIKE’].’\”;
}

$qryFlds = ‘*’;
if ($fields) {
$qryFlds = implode(‘, ‘, $fields);
}

$sql = ‘SELECT ‘.$qryFlds.’ FROM posts as Post WHERE ‘.$qryCond.’ ‘.$orderStr . ‘ LIMIT ‘ . (($page-1) * $limit) . ‘, ‘ . $limit;
$results = $this->query($sql);
return $results;
}[/php]

Overriding paginateCount() function in CakePHP Post Model:

[php]public function paginateCount($conditions = null, $recursive = 0, $extra = array()) {
$qryCond = ‘1’;
if (isset($conditions[‘Post.title LIKE’])) {
$qryCond = ‘title LIKE \”.$conditions[‘Post.title LIKE’].’\”;
}

$sql = ‘SELECT COUNT(*) as count FROM posts as Post WHERE ‘.$qryCond;

$this->recursive = -1;

$results = $this->query($sql);
return $results[0][0][‘count’];
}[/php]

Using in the Post Controller: We can adjust the fields to get, column ordering, add certain conditions or adjust row limit per page.

[php]public function index() {
$this->paginate = array(
‘limit’ => 10,
‘fields’ => array(‘Post.id’, ‘Post.title’, ‘Post.created’),
‘conditions’ => array(‘Post.title LIKE’ => ‘%search_keyword%’),
‘order’ => array(‘Post.title’ => ‘asc’, ‘Post.id’ => ‘asc’)
);
try {
$this->set(‘posts’, $this->paginate(‘Post’));
} catch (NotFoundException $e) {
$this->redirect(‘index_custom’);
}
}[/php]

The above example is based on specific model and requirement, need to adjust the methods according to the requirements.

See Also: Creating a custom handler session in CakePHP 2.x

Best of luck and happy pagination.

Hope you liked this. Let me know if you want to add anything?

How To Setup CakePHP DataSource For Solr?

Posted on by Mandakinee

Imagine that you have millions of data and your SQL database is not optimized enough to handle them, then “Solr” is your best data source. Apache Solr is a fast search platform. It’s major features include full-text search faceted search, dynamic clustering, database integration, rich document handling. Solr is highly scalable and it is the most popular enterprise search engine.

This document will guide you through DataSource setup for Solr in CakePHP. Set-up the Solr DataSource in CakePHP and query Solr with your CakePHP model “find” function, just similar to querying any other SQL database.

/app/Config/database.php:

Configuring your the DataSource for Solr database connection:

  • host: Solr server address.
  • port: Solr server port.
  • datasource: This should match with your DataSource at /app/Model/Datasource/SolrSource.php

[php]class DATABASE_CONFIG {
public $solr = array(
‘datasource’ => ‘SolrSource’,
‘host’ => ‘192.168.2.131’,
‘port’ => ‘9983’,
‘path’ => ‘/solr/’
);
}[/php]

/app/Model/Solr.php:

Use the database config in your models like:

[php]class Solr extends AppModel {
 public $useTable = false;
 public $useDbConfig = ‘solr’;
 }[/php]

/app/Model/Datasource/SolrSource.php:

Below code describes only the most required functions.

  • You can find other required functions at http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/datasources.html
    Like: calculate($model, $func, $params) and others create(), update(), delete().
  • Below DataSource only implements read() function.
  • Create a file called SolrSource.php and use below code:

[php]App::uses(‘HttpSocket’, ‘Network/Http’);
require_once($_SERVER[‘DOCUMENT_ROOT’].’/root_folder/app/Vendor/Apache/Solr/Service.php’);
class SolrSource extends DataSource {

protected $_schema = array();
protected $_host;
protected $_port;

public function __construct($config){
parent::__construct($config);
$this->Http = new HttpSocket();

$this->host = $config[‘host’];
$this->port = $config[‘port’];
$this->_schema = $config[‘path’];

$this->solr=new Apache_Solr_Service($this->host, $this->port, $this->_schema);
}

public function read(Model $model, $queryData = array(), $recursive = null) {
$results = array();
$query = $queryData[‘conditions’][‘solr_query’];
if (Configure::read(‘log_solr_queries’) === true) {
CakeLog::write(‘debug’, $query); /* Logs the solr query in app/tmp/logs/debug.log file */
}

try {
$solr_docs = $this->solr->search($query, $queryData[‘offset’], $queryData[‘limit’], array(‘sort’ => $queryData[‘order’]));
} catch (Exception $e) {
CakeLog::write(‘error’, $e->getMessage()); /* Logs the solr errors message in app/tmp/logs/error.log file */
CakeLog::write(‘error’, $query); /* Logs the solr query in app/tmp/logs/error.log file */
}
$model->params = $solr_docs->responseHeader->params;
$model->numFound = $solr_docs->response->numFound;
$docs = $solr_docs->response->docs;
foreach ($docs as $doc) {
$document = array();
foreach ($doc as $fieldName => $fieldValue) {
$document[$fieldName] = $fieldValue;
}
$results[] = $document;
}
return array($model->alias => $results);
}
}[/php]

/app/Controller/UsersController.php:

Getting data from Solr server by using above SolrSource.

[php]App::uses(‘AppController’, ‘Controller’);
class UsersController extends AppController {

public $name = ‘Users’; //Controller name
public $uses = array(‘Solr’); //Model name

function beforeFilter(){
parent::beforeFilter();
$this->Auth->allow(‘index’);
}

public function index(){
$cond = "active:1";
$sort = "timestamp desc";

$params = array(
‘conditions’ =>array(
‘solr_query’ => $cond
),
‘order’ => $sort,
‘offset’ => 0,
‘limit’ => 1
);

$result = $this->Solr->find(‘all’, $params);
$this->layout = ‘ajax’;
header(‘Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8’); /* To send response in json format */
echo json_encode($result);
die;
}
}[/php]

See Also : How to use ‘neighbors’ with ‘find’ method

Debugging:

The above code has been tested and validated with CakePHP 2.2.3, PHP 5.3.1 .
Incase you face any problems:

  • First check the DataSource configuration in /app/Config/database.php.
  • Check /app/Model/Solr.php for this line: public $useDbConfig = ‘solr’;
  • Make sure Solr Service Vendor loaded in /app/Model/Datasource/SolrSource.php.
  • Check the path is correct for the Solr vendor.

Hope you liked this. Let me know if you want to add anything?

How To Enhance Image Processing With Core Image In IOS Apps

Posted on by Mandakinee

Core Image is a powerful framework for image processing and analysis technology designed to provide real-time processing for still and video images. This helps you easily apply filters to images, such as modifying the hue, exposure or vibrant. It uses the GPU or CPU rendering path to process the image data very fast.

Core Image can be chained with multiple filters to an Image or video frame at once by creating custom effects. Core Image provides us more than 90 built-in filters on iOS and over 120 on OS X. You can set up filters by supplying key-value pairs for a filter’s input parameters. You can use the output of one filter as the input of another filter, to create amazing effects.

Here is how the Core Image is related to the iOS operating system

core-image-1024x415

Before going into Core Image, let’s know about the classes used in the Core Image framework:

CIContext:

The CIContext is a class which provides an evaluation context for rendering a CIImage object. CIContext class is used to take advantage of the built-in Core Image filters while processing an image.

CIImage:

The CIImage is a class which represent an image or holds an image data which may be created from a UIImage, from an image file, or from pixel data.

CIFilter:

The CIFilter class produces a CIImage object as output. A filter takes one or more images as input. The filter class has a dictionary that defines the attributes,so the parameters of a CIFilter object are set and retrieved through the use of key-value pairs. This helps us to add some beautiful effect on the input image.

Sample example:

In this example local image path is used in resource file to apply effects.

// 1 Retrieving the localimage.png path from resource bundle

NSString *filePath =
  [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"localimage" ofType:@"png"];
NSURL *fileNameAndPath = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:filePath];

// 2 Converting the normal image to CIImage object by passing the URL of original localimage.png

CIImage *beginImage =
  [CIImage imageWithContentsOfURL:fileNameAndPath];

// 3 Adding the filter SepiaTone effect to the localimage.png

CIFilter *filter = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CISepiaTone"
                              keysAndValues: kCIInputImageKey, beginImage,
                    @"inputIntensity", @0.8, nil];
CIImage *outputImage = [filter outputImage];

// 4 showing the output image in the UIImageView

IImage *newImage = [UIImage imageWithCIImage:outputImage];
self.imageView.image = newImage;

Note : Here we can change the value of the CIFilter value which is given 0.8 by using a slider which min value is 0 and max value is 1.

Here we have not used the CIContext to perform an CIFilter as said earlier. It helps us to make it easier.

Lets change the above code to include the CIContex:

CIImage *beginImage =
[CIImage imageWithContentsOfURL:fileNameAndPath];
 
// 1
CIContext *context = [CIContext contextWithOptions:nil];
 
CIFilter *filter = [CIFilter filterWithName:@"CISepiaTone"
keysAndValues: kCIInputImageKey, beginImage,
@"inputIntensity", @0.8, nil];
CIImage *outputImage = [filter outputImage];
 
// 2
CGImageRef cgimg =
[context createCGImage:outputImage fromRect:[outputImage extent]];
 
// 3
UIImage *newImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgimg];
self.imageView.image = newImage;
 
// 4
CGImageRelease(cgimg);

Let’s see what happened here:

Here we set up the CIContext object. The CIContext takes an NSDictionary that specifies options including the color format and whether the context should run on the CPU/GPU. Here the default values are fine and so you passed as nil for that argument.

Here we used an method on the context object to draw a CGImage. Calling this method createCGImage:fromRect: on the context with the supplied CIImage will give us an output as CGImageRef.

Next, we converted the CGImage to UIImage using “imageWithCGImage”.

At last we release the CGImageRef as CGImage. CGImage is a C API which need to free memory even it runs with ARC.

Note: To know about all available filters write the following code and call the method in viewDidLoad / onLaunch. The filters are written on the console log.

-(void)logAllFilters {
NSArray *properties = [CIFilter filterNamesInCategory:
kCICategoryBuiltIn];
NSLog(@"%@", properties);
for (NSString *filterName in properties) {
CIFilter *fltr = [CIFilter filterWithName:filterName];
NSLog(@"%@", [fltr attributes]);
}
}

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Containable Behavior in CakePHP

Posted on by Mandakinee

When we are going to retrieve records of (user) using User model, we can get the associated model’s record at the same time. That might not require at some point. To avoid this, CakePHP provides the bindModel/unbindModel methods. But this is not be a good practice. You can streamline your operation using the containable behavior. The performance and the speed will increased as well. It will mostly reduce the joining of tables.

Usage & Examples:

class User extends AppModel {
     public $actsAs = array('Containable');
   }

Where “User” is the model for which you are adding the containable behavior.

You can also do the following on the fly:

$this->User->Behaviors->load(‘Containable’);

Operations:

Without the use of Containable

$this->User->find('all');
  Here User model has hasMany relation with the Comment.
  [0] => Array
        (
            [User] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                    [title] => First article1
                    [content] => aaa1
                    [created] => 2008-05-17 00:00:00
                )
            [Comment] => Array
                ( [0] => Array
          (
            [id] => 1
            [User_id] => 1
            [author] => Daniel1
            [email] => dan@example.com1
            [website] => http://example.com1
            [comment] => First comment1
            [created] => 2008-05-17 00:00:00
          )
        [1] => Array
          (
            [id] => 2
            [User_id] => 1
            [author] => Sam1
            [email] => sam@example.net1
            [website] => http://example.net1
            [comment] => Second comment1
            [created] => 2008-05-10 00:00:00
          )
      )
  )
  [1] => Array
  (
    [User] => Array
      (...

Using Containable:

Case 1: If we need only User data.

$this->User->contain();
      $this->User->find('all');
  OR
  $this->User->find('all', array('contain' => false));
  Out Put:
  [0] => Array
        (
            [User] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                    [title] => First article1
                    [content] => aaa1
                    [created] => 2008-05-17 00:00:00
                )
        )
       [1] => Array
        (
            [User] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 2
                    [title] => Second article1
                    [content] => bbb1
                    [created] => 2008-05-10 00:00:00
                )
        )
  Case 2: With complex associations
       $this->User->contain('Comment.author');
           $this->User->find('all');
 
           // or..
 
           $this->User->find('all', array('contain' => 'Comment.author'));
  Out put:
  [0] => Array
        (
            [User] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                    [title] => First article1
                    [content] => aaa1
                    [created] => 2008-05-17 00:00:00
                )
            [Comment] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [author] => Daniel1
                            [User_id] => 1
                        )
                    [1] => Array
                        (
                            [author] => Sam1
                            [User_id] => 1
                        )
                )
        )
 
   $this->User->find('all', array('contain' => 'Comment.author = "Daniel1"'));
 
    Out put:
  [0] => Array
        (
            [User] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 1
                    [title] => First article1
                    [content] => aaa1
                    [created] => 2008-05-17 00:00:00
                )
            [Comment] => Array
                (
                    [0] => Array
                        (
                            [id] => 1
                            [post_id] => 1
                            [author] => Daniel1
                            [email] => dan@example.com1
                            [website] => http://example.com1
                            [comment] => First comment1
                            [created] => 2008-05-11 00:00:00
                        )
                )
        )
  [1] => Array
        (
            [User] => Array
                (
                    [id] => 2
                    [title] => Second article2
                    [content] => bbb2
                    [created] => 2008-05-22 00:00:00
                )
            [Comment] => Array
                (
                )
        )

The gray area showing that the User data always returned irrespective of the “Comment”.

Pagination Using Containable:

Including the ‘contain’ parameter in the $paginate property we can achieve find(‘count’)
and find(‘all’) on the model. This is a most valuable feature of CakePHP.

$this->paginate['User'] = array(
    'contain' => array('Comment', 'Tag'),
    'order' => 'User.name'
  );
  $users = $this->paginate('User');

If you are searching for PHP or CakePHP developers, then we are the ideal and cost savvy option for you.

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3 Reasons Why future Web Design be Responsive

Posted on by Mandakinee

Responsive Web Design is an approach of laying out a website such that the website provides an optimal viewing experience — ease of reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling — across a wide range of devices and screen sizes(from desktop computer to mobile devices).
The designer creating a Responsive Design should ensure that the website’s navigation elements, screen-layouts, text, images, audio/video players and other UI elements re-adjust themselves on a variety of devices. Thus, one need not spend extra time and money in creating and maintaining one “mobile version” and another “desktop version” of the website.

Now, having understood what is Responsive Web Design, let us understand why Responsive Design is important while creating websites.

  1. Mobile Usage is Exploding like never before
    According to a Morgan Stanley report, Mobile internet usage is expected to cross over desktop usage by 2014.

    • Over 20% of Google searches are being performed on a mobile device.
    • One half of local searches are made on mobile devices
    • 86% of mobile users are using mobile devices while watching tv
    • 61% of people have a better opinion of brands when they offer a good mobile experience
    • In the United States, 27% of internet users only access the internet on a mobile device
  2. Responsive Adapts to Diverse Devices and Screen size
    As smartphone and tablet adoption rapidly increases, so does the importance of mobile-friendly website.

    One of the most appealing aspects of responsive web design is that a responsive website can provide a great user experience across many devices and screen sizes. This is an important characteristic, since it is impossible to anticipate all the devices and screen sizes searchers will use to access your site. A site that works well regardless of these variables will provide a better and more consistent user-experience than a separate mobile site that is designed for a specific device and screen size.

  3. Responsive Design is Preferred for SEO/Digital Marketing
    In June 2012 at SMX Advanced, Google’s Pierre Farr went on record to declare that Google prefers responsive web design over mobile templates. Having one single URL makes it easier for Google bot to crawl site, Google’s external link algorithm and reduces the chance of on-page SEO issues. For all these reasons, responsive sites typically perform better and are easier to maintain than a separate, mobile template site.

    If SEO is part of your digital marketing strategy, having a mobile–friendly website is becoming essential. Also in order to have separate desktop and mobile site requires need to have separate SEO campaigns. Managing one site and one SEO campaign is far easier than managing 2 sites with equal number of campaigns. This is a key advantage a responsive website has over a separate mobile site.

dtl2

Andolasoft has expertise in designing responsive websites. Check out some of our free responsive web templates.

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