Verifying that the Text from a DataSource Exists in a WebTest Response VSTS
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I use Visual Studio Team Testers Edition everyday at work and one of the things that seemed really strange to me was that Microsoft had missed so many tricks when they decided to release it.
Maybe they just decided to build in reasons for users to upgrade, knowing that there will always be another version of VSTS around the corner.
One of the things which is sorely missing is the ability to verify HTML source code against a datasource. Sure you can load a data source and then verify what is returned on the page when that row of the data-source is called however there is no functionality to check that the value of the row that you have submitted is returned somewhere in the HTML source (known as the response in VSTS).
So as per usual when you need something doing then, do it yourself, and hence I wrote a small piece of code that looks at the source code and then checks the value of the datasource row to make sure that the item you are submitting is returned in the HTML response.
All the data is dynamic from your source so you can’t just hard code validation rules, as there could be thousands of rows.
For an example take a Google search test. Imagine I want to check that my datasource of 10,000 records is retuned on every response.
So if I search for “System Testers” as a parameter value
“Parameter Name = q” and
“Parameter Value = Google DataSource.Directory_03062010#csv.SearchParams”
In the above QueryString Parameter you can see
the Datasource is called “Google DataSource”
the Actual FileName is “Directory_03062010″ (and it’s a CSV file)
the Column name is SearchParams
I’ve commented my code to make it easier to understand however if you need any help just ask.
Code Below.
‘———————————————————————‘Author = Martin Hall
‘Purpose = To load text from a DataSource and then to compare that text
‘ against the source code on the page your testing.
‘Date = 07th June 2010
‘———————————————————————
Imports System
Imports System.ComponentModel
Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting
Namespace RegressionSampleWebTestRules
Public Class RegressionAllHeadingLocationsRule
Inherits Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting.ValidationRule
‘———————————————————————
‘ Specify a name for use in the user interface.
‘ The user sees this name in the Add Validation dialog box.
‘———————————————————————
Public Overrides ReadOnly Property RuleName() As String
Get
Return “RegressionAllHeadingLocationsRule”
End Get
End Property
‘———————————————————————
‘ Specify a description for use in the user interface.
‘ The user sees this description in the Add Validation dialog box.
‘———————————————————————
Public Overrides ReadOnly Property RuleDescription() As String
Get
Return “This should Compare text from a datasource parameter in a CSV file against the page sourcecode.”
End Get
End Property
‘ The name of the expected string
Private ExpectedStringValue As String
Public Property ExpectedString() As String
Get
Return ExpectedStringValue
End Get
Set(ByVal value As String)
ExpectedStringValue = value
End Set
End Property
‘———————————————————————
‘ Validate is called with the test case Context and the request context.
‘ These allow the rule to examine both the request and the response.
‘———————————————————————
Public Overrides Sub Validate(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As ValidationEventArgs)
Try
Dim result2 As String
‘———————————————————————
‘we only want request2 to match the source code on the returned web page.
‘the SourceCode could be different on the other pages.
‘———————————————————————
result2 = (e.WebTest.Context(“Google DataSource.Directory_03062010#csv.SearchParams”).ToString())
‘———————————————————————
‘This should check the response for text
‘The text in question is the ParamValue we are supplying as new fake
‘parameter name and value
‘———————————————————————
If e.Response.BodyString.ToLower.Contains(result2) = False Then
e.IsValid = False
e.Message = (“fail – - “) & result2
End If
If e.Response.BodyString.ToLower.Contains(result2) Then
e.IsValid = True
e.Message = (“pass – - “) & result2
End If
Catch ex As Exception
End Try
End Sub
End Class
End Namespace
/End Code.
The above script is in Visual Basic.Net and it should work for you and if you need any help in how to install and run it then either send an email or reply in the comments.
One last thing to mention is that the values from the data source are loaded in a fake Parameter Name (Just make one up) which will be ignored by the Website however it will show as a Context Name in the Visual Studio Web Test, so we are really just comparing two Context Names
Good Luck
Martin H
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