Ordinal Identifier in QTP

While learning the objects, QTP tries to identify objects based on the mandatory and assistive properties of the object. In case the above properties are insufficient to uniquely identify the object. QTP uses the ordinal identifier properties to uniquely identify the object together with the madatory and assistive properties.

There are three type of Ordinal Identifier in QTP which are assigned as numeric integer value for the object based on the order occurrence of object in the browser.

The three types of ordinal identifier are described below:

Ordinal Identifier	Description
Index Based	Based on the object in the window, An index value is assigned to object based on existence in the source code. Index value starts from 0.
Location Based	The Location property is based on location of object, works vertically from top to bottom and then from left to right. value starts from 0.
Creation Time	The Creation Time property is used for browser objects mainly and used to identify multiple browsers based on the time the browser/page was open. Value starts from 0

Properties for object identification in QTP

QTP learns the properties of test objects to uniquely identify the object at run time. There are predefined set of properties for object classes in each environment.

Object are classified as Object classes for each environment. For e.g. environment Standard Windows environment as shown below will have all the test object class defined and defined are the mandatory and assistive properties to identify the object. Also we can set smart identification On for the object and the default ordinal identifier.to identify the object. 

To have a look at Object Identification properties for an object, Navigate to Tools>Object Identifier.

Let us understand the object Identification Window:

1. Environment: Lists all the environment for which objects are defined.

2. Object Classes: List all the controls available for the environment selected.

3. Mandatory Properties: These are the properties QTP always learns for the test object class selected.

4. Assistive Properties: In case object is not uniquely identified using the mandatory properties, there are some assistive properties which are learned to uniquely identify the object.

5. Smart Identification is false by default, but can be checked for identification.

6. Ordinal Identifer: In case object is not identified using the above properties , Ordinal identifier is used to identify the object

List of Regular Expression for UFT/QTP

Regular expression are used to match input text with the pattern provided by regular expression engine. A pattern consists of one or more character literals, operators, or constructs. Below table explains the different regular expression patterns to identify the input text matches the expected pattern

Regular expression are used to validate the input text provided with the expected pattern. e.g : validating date format is correct or telephone number  provided is in correct format.

Reg. Expression	Description
( .)	A dot matches single character (.) eg test. will match dot followed by any single character.example: testa, test5
[ab]	Matches either of the character in the list. e.g 23[ab] will match both 23a or 23b but not 23r
[^ab]	Matches all the characters excluding the the character in the list. e.g 23[^ab] will not match both 23a or 23b but will match23r,235 or 23 followed by any character other
\b	Matches a word at boundary. e.g test/b will match entest but not entester
[x-y]	Matches a single character in the range. e.g 23[a-d] will match 23a,23b,23c,23d but not 23r
[^x-y]	Matches a single character not in the range. e.g 23[^a-d] will not match 23a,23b,23c,23d but 23r
\B	Matches a word not at boundary. e.g test/b will match entest but not entester
\W	Matches any non-alphaNumeric character excluding underscore
\w	Matches any alphaNumeric character including underscore
*	Wildcard character matching the multiple occurence of preceding character. e.g rat* will match ra, rat, rattt, ............i.e multiple occurence of preceeding character t in this example.
.*	Wildcard character matching the multiple occurence of preceding character.Preceeding character is . in case, so ra.* will match any string starting with ra
+	Similar to * but atleast one occurence of the character should match.e.g : rat+ will match rat but not ra
?	matches zero or one occurrences of the preceding character. For example: ra?t match rt or rat only
|	Matches either of the character seperated by |.example nes(t|l)ey will match nestey or nesley.
\d	Matches a digit character
\D	Matches a non- digit/numeric character
\	marks the next character as special character or a literal. e.g \n is for new line ; \\ for \ and \d for a digit character
^	matches the pattern at start of line. e.g: ^test will match testing, tester but not autotest.
$	matches the pattern at end of line. e.g: test$ will match autotest but not tester.
|	Matches either of the character seperated by |.example nes(t|l)ey will match nestey or nesley.
{}	Matches the start and end of qualifier expression. e.g a{4,5} will match aaaa or aaaaa

Reference:  Regular Expression Language - Quick Reference