WebTest
Efficient Functional Web Testing
with HtmlUnit and Beyond

Marc Guillemot

JUG Cologne

25.08.2008

Your speaker

French developer exiled in Germany

Independent consultant since 2002

Focus on Java, Groovy, Grails and ... web testing

HtmlUnit & WebTest lead developer

Committer to Groovy & NekoHTML

Blog: http://mguillem.wordpress.com

Site (coming): http://www.efficient-webtesting.com

Agenda

Introduction to WebTest

Test automation: a software engineering activity

Extending WebTest

Myths and best practices

WebTest and AJAX

WebTest's future(s)

Conclusion

Q & A

What I won't say

Why you should automate your web application tests

How to install WebTest

How to integrate into your build

Why Selenium sucks ;-)

What is WebTest

Automated web functional testing tool

Open Source (Apache 2 license)

Founded in 2001

Currently 4 committers (Germany, Switzerland, USA, Australia)

Built on top of Apache Ant

http://webtest.canoo.com

Who uses WebTest?

Open Source project => no idea!

Let's look at the mailing list: 700 subscribers

michael@huettermann.net

*@apache.org

*@*.gov

Akamai, AMD, Axa, Bayer, Boeing, BT, Citigroup, Crdit-Suisse, CSC, DHL, EDS, IBM, Lexmark, Novartis, Oracle, Paypal, Sun, T-Mobile, Thalesgroup, Verisign, Zuehlke, ...

=> everybody from small to huge

demo(on a strange site)

Over 100 WebTest Steps

General

...

Forms

...

Verification

...

PDF

...

Excel documents

...

Email, Applets, ...

Comprehensive online documentation
http://webtest.canoo.com

A software engineering activity

Apply rules of software engineering

Remove duplications

Extract modules

Use source control

Consider modifications and extensions

Ant, Java, Groovy

XPath

Learn XPath

Learn XPath!!!

Apply it wisely

/html/body/div[2]/center/table[3]/tr/td[@id='total']

//*[@id='total']

Write HTML code allowing simple XPath expressions!!!

Apply the right testing paradigm

Capture / replay

Model based testing

Data driven testing

Scripted automation

demoWebTestRecorder

Model based testing

Specification: modelling expected behavior

Be tolerant to accidental behavior

Example:

bad XPath: /html/body/div[2]/center/table[3]

better: //*[@id='total']

Fault model: modelling unexpected behavior

demodata driven

Scripted automation

Maximum flexibility and power

Maximum responsibility

Extending
WebTest

Why?

Go beyond built-in features

Customize for special needs

Make your tests easier to write

Make your tests results easier to read

Building blocks

WebTest

GroovyApache ANT

Apache POI...HtmlUnitJakarta commons-httpclientNekoHTMLMozilla Rhino

...

WebTest uses HtmlUnit

A browser for Java programms

100% pure java, headless

Able to simulate FF or IE

Very fast and leightweight

Used in WebTest but as well in JSFUnit, WebDriver, JWebUnit, Cactus, Celerity, Schnell, ...

Very good JS support... but not yet perfect

Go beyond built-in features

...

step.context.webClient.credentialsProvider.addNTLMProxyCredentials(

"michael", "secret",

"testserver", 12345,

"BlueGene", "my.windows.domain")

.....

...

Hack the web connection

Define custom steps

Works but:

too low level

not reusable

...

...

Define custom steps