Re: RE: Continuing tests after a step failure

Hi Ian,

This is actually very easy to implement, although we write xml tests with ant macros, which I don't know how to re-use in groovy tests.  You should be able to utilize the same logic inside your groovy tests, though.

First, we wrote a macro which allows for a soft failure:

<macrodef  name="softFail"  description="Wraps Steps such that the failures are ignored">
    <element name="steps" implicit="true"/>
    <sequential>
        <retry description="softFail Wrapper" maxcount="2" counterName="softFailCounter">
            <ifStep>
                <condition>
                    <verifyProperty description="Verify this is the first run" name="softFailCounter" value="0" propertyType="dynamic" />
                </condition>
                <then>
                    <steps/>
                </then>
                <else>
                    <setProperty description="Set softFailure to true so the test will fail" name="softFailure" value="true" propertyType="dynamic" />
                </else>
            </ifStep>
        </retry>    </sequential> </macrodef>

We then wrote a second macro which verifies no failure occurred:

<macrodef name="checkSoftFailure" description="Fail the test if a soft failure occurred">
    <sequential>
        <not>
            <verifyProperty description="Check if #{softFailure} is set to true" name="softFailure" value="true" propertyType="dynamic" />
        </not>
    </sequential>
</macrodef>

Our tests then look like this:

<webtest name="Soft Fail Example">
    <steps>
        <!-- Do stuff -->
        <softFail>
                <!--Step or steps that can fail -->
        </softFail>
        <!-- Do more stuff -->
        <checkSoftFailure/>
    </steps>
</webtest>

Hope that helps,

John Spann | Associate Software Engineer

Citrix Online Division
Citrix Systems, Inc.
6500 Hollister Avenue
Goleta, CA 93117 USA
www.citrix.com

Phone: 805.690.3489
Cell: 805.729.0008
Email: John.Spann@...


________________________________
From: Ian Homer <ian.homer@...>
Reply-To: <webtest@...>, Ian Homer <ian.homer@...>
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:17:48 -0700
To: <webtest@...>
Subject: [Webtest] RE: Continuing tests after a step failure

Hi,

Just reading back catalog of topics on the mailing list having
questioned to myself whether tests could continue a step failure and I
found this thread.

Personally I think there is some value in having a soft step failure,
i.e. a step failure that does not cause subsequent steps in a webtest
to fail.  For example I have a test case that involves multiple forms
and I want to verify the title of each form as I go through the
flow.   I ran this test and it failed on the second form because the
title on the second page was not correct.  That's fine - because
that's a failed test, however this failure does not in reality prevent
the functional flow from continuing, the second form can still be
filled in and run OK.  Now I could out the tests into separate
webtests, and I could write the steps as macrodefs (or Groovy closures
as I'm writing tests in Groovy), but this seems an unnecessary
abstraction when I have a single script which I'd like to cover
various functional aspects.

For example my groovy test script might be written as ...

       webtest("test name") {
         group login
         verifyTitle 'Title 1'
         group inputForm1.curry(name:'Test',age:
65,sex:'Female',smoker:'No')
         verifyTitle 'Title 2'
        group inputForm2.curry(name:'Test',age:65,sex:'Male',smoker:'No')
         verifyText 'Title 3'
       }

(where login, inputForm1 and inputForm2 are closures defining how I
log in and fill in the two forms)

Having a construct where I could identify one of the steps as a soft
failure, e.g.

   soft { verifyTitle 'Title 2' }

would be extremely useful, keep my test as a single script and allow
me to identify steps which do not break the flow on failure.

What's the general consensus on this and would this approach be
something that would be considered?

Ian

--
Ian Homer
mobile ... made simple
http://bemoko.com | twitter: ianhomer











_______________________________________________
WebTest mailing list
WebTest@...
http://lists.canoo.com/mailman/listinfo/webtest

_______________________________________________
WebTest mailing list
WebTest@...
http://lists.canoo.com/mailman/listinfo/webtest