/ 
swat-0.1.67
/ README.md

SYNOPSIS

Web automated testing framework.

Description

Ok, now I hope you are ready to dive into swat tutorial! :)

Install

$ sudo apt-get install curl
$ sudo cpanm swat

Or install from source:

# useful for contributors and developers
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

Write your swat story

Swat test stories always answers on 2 type of questions:

As swat is a web test oriented tool it deals with some http related stuff as:

Swat leverages unix file system to build an analogy for these things:

HTTP Resources

HTTP resource is just a directory. You have to create a directory to define a http resource:

mkdir foo/
mkdir -p bar/baz

This code defines two http resources for your application - 'foo/' and 'bar/baz'

HTTP methods

HTTP method is just a file. You have to create a file to define a http method.

touch foo/get.txt
touch foo/put.txt
touch bar/baz/post.txt

Obviously `http methods' files should be located at `http resource' directories.

The code above defines a three http methods for two http resources:

* GET /foo
* PUT /foo
* POST bar/baz

Here is the list of predefined file names for a http methods files:

get.txt --> GET method
post.txt --> POST method
put.txt --> PUT method
delete.txt --> DELETE method

Hostname / IP Address

You need to define hostname or ip address to send request to. Just write it up to a special file called `host' and swat will use it.

echo 'app.local' > host

As swat makes http requests with the help of curl, the host name should be complaint with curl requirements, this for example means you may define a http schema or port here:

echo 'https://app.local' >> host
echo 'app.local:8080' >> host

HTTP Response

Swat makes request to a given http resources with a given http methods and then validates a response. Swat does this with the help so called check lists, Check lists are defined at `http methods' files.

Check list is just a list of expressions a response should match. It might be a plain strings or regular expressions:

echo 200 OK > foo/get.txt
echo 'Hello I am foo' >> foo/get.txt

The code above defines two checks for response from `GET /foo':

You may add some regular expressions checks as well:

# for example check if we got something like 'date':
echo 'regexp: \d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\d' >> foo/get.txt

Bringing all together

All these things http method, http resource and check list comprise into essential swat entity called a swat story.

Swat story is a very simple test plan, which could be expressed in a cucumber language as follows:

Given I have web application 'http://my.cool.app:80'
And I have http method 'GET'
And make http request 'GET /foo'
Then I should have response matches '200 OK'
And I should have response matches 'Hello I am foo'
And I should have response matches '\d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\d'

From the file system point of view swat story is a:

Swat Project

Swat project is a bunch of a related swat stories kept under a single directory. This directory is called project root directory. The project root directory name does not that matter, swat just looks up swat story files into it and then "execute" them. See swat runner workflow section for full explanation of this process.

This is an example swat project layout:

$ tree my/swat/project
  my/swat/project
  |--- host
  |----FOO
  |-----|----BAR
  |           |---- post.txt
  |--- FOO
        |--- get.txt

3 directories, 3 files

When you ask swat to execute swat stories you have to point it a project root directory or `cd' to it and run swat without arguments:

swat my/swat/project

# or

cd my/swat/project && swat

Note, that project root directory path will be removed from http resources paths during execution:

Use `test_file' variable to execute a subset of swat stories:

# run a single story
test_file=FOO/get swat example/my-app 127.0.0.1

# run all `FOO/*' stories:
test_file=FOO/ swat example/my-app 127.0.0.1

Test_file variable should point to a resource(s) path and be relative to project root dir, also it should not contain extension part - `.txt'

Swat check lists

Swat check lists complies Outthentic DSL format.

There are lot of possibilities here!

( For full explanation of outthentic DSL please follow documentation. )

A few examples:

Often all you need is to ensure that http response has some strings in:

# http response
200 OK
HELLO
HELLO WORLD


# check list
200 OK
HELLO

# swat output
OK - output matches '200 OK'
OK - output matches 'HELLO'

You may use regular expressions as well:

# http response
My birth day is: 1977-04-16


# check list
regexp: \d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\d


# swat output
OK - output matches /\d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\d/

Follow https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic-dsl#check-expressions to know more.

Yes you may generate new check list on run time:

# original check list

Say
HELLO

# this generator creates 3 new check expressions:

generator: [ qw{ say hello again } ]

# final check list:

Say
HELLO
say
hello
again

Follow https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic-dsl#generators to know more.

What about inline arbitrary perl code? Well, it's easy!

# check list
regexp: number: (\d+)
validator: [ ( capture()->[0] '>=' 0 ), 'got none zero number') ];

Follow https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic-dsl#validators to know more.

Need to valiade that some lines goes in response successively ?

    # http response

    this string followed by
    that string followed by
    another one string
    with that string
    at the very end.


    # check list
    # this text block
    # consists of 5 strings
    # goes consequentially
    # line by line:

    begin:
        # plain strings
        this string followed by
        that string followed by
        another one
        # regexps patterns:
    regexp: with (this|that)
        # and the last one in a block
        at the very end
    end:

Follow https://github.com/melezhik/outthentic-dsl#comments-blank-lines-and-text-blocks to know more.

Swat ini files

Every swat story comes with some settings you may define to adjust swat behavior. These type of settings could be defined at swat ini files.

Swat ini files are file called "swat.ini" and located at `resources' directory:

 foo/bar/get.txt
 foo/bar/swat.ini

The content of swat ini file is the list of variables definitions in bash format:

$name=value

As swat ini files is bash scripts you may use bash expressions here:

if [ some condition ]; then
    $name=value
fi

Following is the list of swat variables you may define at swat ini files, it could be divided on two groups:

swat variables

Swat variables define swat basic configuration, like logging mode, prove runner settings, etc. Here is the list:

For example:

# swat.ini
# assume that we set profile variable somewhere else
# 

if test "${profile}" = 'production'; then
    skip_story=1 # we don't want this one for production
fi

curl parameters

Curl parameters relates to curl client. Here is the list:

Here are some examples:

# -d curl parameter
curl_params='-d name=daniel -d skill=lousy' # post data sending via form submit.

# --data-binary curl parameter
curl_params=`echo -E "--data-binary '{\"name\":\"alex\",\"last_name\":\"melezhik\"}'"`

# set http header
curl_params="-H 'Content-Type: application/json'"

Follow curl documentation to get more examples.

other variables

This is the list of helpful variables you may use in swat ini files:

Alternative swat ini files locations

Swat try to find swat ini files at these locations ( listed in order )

Settings priority table

This table describes all possible locations for swat ini files. Swat try to find swat ini files in order:

| location                                  | order N     |
| --------------------------------------------------------|
| ~/swat.ini                                | 1           |
| `project_root_directory'/swat.ini         | 2           |
| `http resource' directory/swat.ini file   | 3           |
| current working directory/swat.my file    | 4           |
| environment variables                     | 5           |

In case the same variable is defined more than once at swat ini files with different locations, the file loaded last win:

curl_params="-H 'Foo: Bar'" # in a ~/swat.ini
curl_params="-H 'Bar: Baz'" # in a project_root_directory/swat.ini

# actual curl_params value:
"-H 'Bar: Baz'"

If you want concatenation mode use name="$name value" expression:

curl_params="-H 'Foo: Bar'" # in a ~/swat.ini
curl_params="$curl_params -H 'Bar: Baz'" # in a project_root_directory/swat.ini

# actual curl_params value:
"-H 'Foo: Bar' -H 'Bar: Baz'"

In case you need provide default value for some variable use name=${name default_value} expression:

# port will be set 80 unless it's not set somewhere else
port=${port:=80} # in a ~/swat.ini

Hooks

Hooks are extension points to hack into swat runtime phase. It's just files with perl code gets executed in the beginning of swat story. You should named your hook file as `hook.pm' and place it into `resource' directory:

# foo/hook.pm
diag "hello, I am swat hook";
sub red_green_blue_generator { [ qw /red green blue/ ] }


# foo/get.txt
generator: red_green_blue_generator()

There are lot of reasons why you might need a hooks. To say a few:

Hooks API

Swat hooks API provides several functions to change swat story at runtime

Redefine http responses

set_response(STRING)

Using set_response means that you never make a real request to a web application, but instead set response on your own side.

This feature is helpful when you need to mock up http responses instead of having them requested from a real web application. For example in absence of an access to a tested application or if response is too slow or it involves too much data which make it hard to execute a swat stories often.

This is an example of setting server response inside swat hook:

# hook.pm
set_response("THIS IS I FAKE RESPONSE\n HELLO WORLD");

# get.txt
THIS IS A FAKE RESPONSE
HELLO WORLD

Another interesting idea about set_response feature is a conditional http requests.

Let say we have `POST /login' request for user authentication, this is a simple swat story for it:

# login/post.txt
200 OK

Good. But what if you need to skip authentication under some conditions, like if you are already logged in before? We could write such a code:

# login/post.txt
generator:
$logged_in ? [ 'I am already logged in' : '200 OK' ]

# login/hook.pm
if ( ... check if user is logged in .... ){
    set_response('I am already logged in');
}

Redefine http resources

modify_resource(CODEREF)

To modify existed resource use modify_resource function:

# foo/bar/baz/ - resource

# hook.pm
modify_resource( sub { my $resource = shift; s/bar/bbaarr/, s/baz/bbaazz/ for $resource; $resource  } );

# modified resource
foo/bbaarr/bbaazz

Upstream and downstream stories

Swat allow you to call one story from another, using notion of swat modules.

Swat modules are reusable swat stories. Swat never executes swat modules directly, instead you have to call swat module from your swat story. Story calling another story is named a upstream story, story is being called is named a downstream story. ( This kind of analogy is taken from Jenkins CI )

Let show how this work on a previous `login' example. We need to ensure that user is logged in before doing some other action, like checking email list:

# email/list/get.txt
200 OK
email list

# email/list/hook.pm
run_swat_module( POST => '/login', { user => 'alex', password => 'swat' } )  

# and finally this is
# login/post.txt
200 OK

# login/swat.ini
swat_module=1 # this story is a swat module
curl_params="-d 'user=%user%' -d 'password=%password%'"

Here are the brief comments to the example above:

Here is an example code snippet:

# hook.pm
run_swat_module( GET => '/foo/' )
run_swat_module( POST => '/foo/bar' )
run_swat_module( GET => '/foo/' )

Use hash passed as third parameter of run_swat_module function:

run_swat_module( GET => '/foo', { var1 => 'value1', var2 => 'value2', var3=>'value3'   }  )

Swat interpolates module variables into `curl_params' variable in swat module story:

# swat module
# swat.ini
swat_module=1
# initial value of curl_params variable:
curl_params='-d var1=%var1% -d var2=%var2% -d var3=%var3%'

# real value of curl_params variable
# during execution of swat module:
curl_param='-d var1=value1 -d var2=value2 -d var3=value3'

Use %[\w\d_]+% placeholders in a curl_params variable to insert module variables here

Access to a module variables is provided by `module_variable' function:

# hook.pm
module_variable('var1');
module_variable('var2');

One word about sharing state between upstream story and swat modules. As swat modules get executed in the same process as upstream story there is no magic about sharing data between upstream and downstream stories. The straightforward way to share state is to use global variables :

# upstream story hook:
our $state = [ 'this is upstream story' ]

# downstream story hook:
push our @$state, 'I was here'

Of course more proper approaches for state sharing could be used as singeltones or something else.

Swat variables accessors

There are some accessors to a common swat variables:

project_root_dir()
test_root_dir()

resource()
resource_dir()

http_method()
hostname()

ignore_http_err()

Be aware of that these are readers not setters.

PERL5LIB

Swat adds `project_root_directory/lib' path to PERL5LIB path, which make it easy to add some modules and use them:

# my-app/lib/Foo/Bar/Baz.pm
package Foo::Bar::Baz;
...

# hook.pm
use Foo::Bar::Baz;
...

Swat runner workflow

This is detailed explanation of swat runner life cycle.

Swat runner script consequentially hits two phases:

Generating Test::More asserts sequence

Time diagram

This is a time diagram for swat runner life cycle:

TAP

Swat produces output in TAP format, that means you may use your favorite tap parsers to bring result to another test / reporting systems, follow TAP documentation to get more on this.

Here is example for converting swat tests into JUNIT format:

swat --formatter TAP::Formatter::JUnit

Prove settings

Swat utilize prove utility to run tests, all prove related parameters are passed as is to prove. Here are some examples:

swat -Q # don't show anythings unless test summary
swat -q -s # run prove tests in random and quite mode

Swat client

Once swat is installed you get swat client at the `PATH':

swat <project_root_dir> <host:port> <prove settings>

Examples

There is plenty of examples at ./examples directory

AUTHOR

Aleksei Melezhik

Home Page

https://github.com/melezhik/swat

Thanks

All the stuff that swat relies upon, thanks to those authors:

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2015 Alexey Melezhik.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.