QTP pitfalls for WinRunner users (Part II)

Today was another day of fiddling around with QTP. The VBScript language of QTP is still a bit new to me and I stumbled into some neatly disguised traps:

1. The .exist(n) method is in seconds
Normally I use the .exist() method for synchronization, but today I used it for checking if the right finalise page was reached or that I had to cope with an data validation error somewhere. I do not bother test objects, because at this moment I am not testing, but just doing an automated data entry project with some complex datamodels. (This is where the classes are hopping in I mentioned before).
To test my code, I started my QTP script and went for my lunch. When I got back, only one set of data was entered and the screen was synchronizing on a page. And synchronizing. And synchronizing.

After pressing the stop button and debugging my code, I found out that the wait time in exist(n) is expected in seconds, while the help file mentions milliseconds!
My script was waiting for a never appearing page for 10.000 seconds instead of 10.000 milliseconds.
Not very uncommon for the WinRunner user by the way (obj_exists() and win_exists() works almost the same), only misleading because of incorrect information the help file.

2. Location is optional in object identification
When there are multiple object in your AUT that match the same description in the object repository, QTP just picks the first one when the ordinal properties are set to 'none'.
And this property is always set to none whenever you learned the object while it was unique on the screen.
In WinRunner, you used to get the error message E_NOT_UNIQUE, but QTP is figuring it out all by itself, even with Smart Identification switched off. Something to keep in mind.

3. Eval() is not exactly eval();
Eval() in QTP is used for comparison, while Execute() is used for assignment:

a = 2
msgbox eval("a = 2") ' displays 'True'
msgbox a ' displays '2'
msgbox execute("a = 3") ' displays nothing, a is set to 3
msgbox a ' displays '3'

Keep this in mind if you used the eval() function in WinRunner for assignment of virtual variables. It won't work in QTP and you have to use execute().

4. There is no fast way to export the object repository to plain text
Unlike WinRunner, where the GUI map was just a plain text file, it is not possible to easily export (and manipulate) the object repository. It is possible though, but you'll have to do it through COM automation on the QTP application. I tried it today, but I failed miserably because I could not access the ActiveX object (probably not enough authorization on my workstation).
However, if I get it working, I will post the code on Automated Chaos.