NAME

App::SimpleScan::Cookbook

DESCRIPTION

This is a documentation-only module that describes how to use simple_scan for some common Web testing problems.

BASICS

simple_scan reads test specifications from standard input and generates Perl code based on these specifications. It can either

• execute them immediately,

• print them on standard output without executing them,

• or do both: execute them and then print the generated code on standard output.

TEST SPECS

Test specifications describe

• where the page is that you want to check,

• some content (in the form of a Perl regular expression) that you want look for

PLUGINS

Plugins are Perl modules that extend simple_scan's abilities without modification of the core code.

Installing a new pragma

Create a pragmas method in your plugin that returns pairs of pragma names and methods to be called to process the pragma.

sub pragmas {
  return (['mypragma' => \&do_my_pragma],
          ['another'  => \&another]);
}

sub do_my_pragma {
  my ($app, $args);
  # Parse the arguments. You have access to
  # all of the methods in App::SimpleScan as
  # well as any subs defined here. You may 
  # want to export methods to the App::SimpleScan
  # namespace in your import() method.
}

...

Installing new command-line options

Create an options method in your plugin that returns a hash of options and variables to capture their values in. You will also want to export accessors for these variables to the App::SimpleScan namespace in your import.

sub import {
  no strict 'refs';
  *{caller() . '::myoption} = \&myoption;
}

sub options {
  return ('myoption' => \$myoption);
}

sub myoption {
  my ($self, $value) = @_;
  $myoption = $value if defined $value;
  $myoption;
}

Installing other modules via plugins

Create a test_modules method that returns a list of module names to be used by the generated test program.

sub test_modules {
  return ('Test::Foo', 'Blortch::Zonk');
}

Adding extra code to the test output stack in a plugin

Create a per_test subroutine. This method gets called with the current App::SimpleScan::TestSpec object.

sub per_test {
  $self->app->_stack_test(qw(fail "forced failure accessing bad.com";\n))
   if $self->uri =~ /bad.com/;
}