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Defining and Associating Attributes

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Getting Started: A Tutorial

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Defining and Associating Attributes

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Defining and Associating Attributes

Attributes are site-specific or project-specific characteristics that you define
for your testplan and assign to test descriptions or group descriptions. They
are used to categorize tests, so that you can then reference them as a group.
The benefit of using attributes is that they can be incorporated into queries,
allowing you to mark and run testcases in a testplan based on criteria that you
set. Attributes can also be used as a means to categorize report data.

Default attributes

SilkTest provides three default testplan attributes with predefined names:

Attribute Names are limited to 11 characters and cannot have spaces. They
are not case sensitive.

Note You may rename any attributes, including the default
attributes. However, renaming attributes does not update those
attributes that are already in use in existing testplans. If you have
existing testplans renaming attributes may result in orphaned
attributes in those testplans.

Attribute Values are the values that have been assigned to a specific attribute.
For example, the Component attribute may have the values Place Order,
Billing Information and OnLine Receipt. The developer attribute may have
the values Joe, Peter and Sally.

Where are the
attributes stored?

Attribute data, as well as queries, are stored by default in the testplan
initialization file, testplan.ini, located in the SilkTest installation directory.
The default file can be changed. For information about initialization files, see
the online Help.

Defining values for
default attributes

In the following exercise, you will define values for the default attributes.

Attribute

Specifies