Forum Discussion

richie's avatar
richie
Community Hero
7 years ago

How To Assert On an Empty JSON Response?

Hey,   I have 2 REST requests - a POST and a GET.  The POST updates the record (either create/update/delete) and I use the GET to verify the results of the POST.   I am trying to prove a reco...
aaronpliu's avatar
aaronpliu
Frequent Contributor
7 years ago

Hi

 

Most of time response of POST / PUT / DELETE is empty or just return a [] / {}. But the response status should be 200 if success. So firstly you need to determine if response is good. and then like what you said. Sending a GET request to check if update takes effect or not.

For example, if you delete a record, you may know its ID or name, then you needs to check if it really deleted in GET.

Adding "Valid HTTP Status Code" in  assertion alongwith code=200, 202.

If have response, then simply check it thru script assertion if need

def response = messageExchange.response?.contentAsString
if(response != null){
    // example
    assert response.size() > 0, "No any content returned in Response"
}

 

Regards,

/Aaron

  • Olga_T's avatar
    Olga_T
    SmartBear Alumni (Retired)
    7 years ago

    Hi all,

     

    richie, have you had a chance to try the suggestion that aaronpliu provided? Maybe, do you have any updates on the situation?

     

  • richie's avatar
    richie
    Community Hero
    7 years ago

    Hi aaronpliu

     

    thanks for the help - but I must be missing something important but obvious here - cos it didn't work as I expected.

     

    I added the script assertion you provided on the GET request that I'm using to prove the record was deleted correctly. (just as an aside - I'm getting valid responses back from the application server so I'm not worried about checking for http status codes).

     

    The script assertion you provided is below

     

    def response = messageExchange.response?.contentAsString
if(response != null){
// example
assert response.size() > 0, "No any content returned in Response"
}


    When I forced the GET's response to include a body (e.g.by using the 'Accept' header with value of application/xml on the request) - I get an empty <results /> element in the outline tab and the script assertion 'passed'.

     

    When I forced the response to be completely empty (e.g.by using the 'Accept' header with value of application/json on the request) - I get nothing in the response payload (outline tab is empty) and the script assertion 'passed'. Admittedly if I look at the raw I do get [] - and I'm unsure if this is just SoapUI representing a blank response body or not.

     

    You'll have to forgive me, my groovy is rubbish - but reading the above it appears that if there is a payload in response, then assert the response size is >0, (which I get) and return a message saying there isn't any content.??? I appreciate it appears you specified the assertion as possible example.

     

    I played around with operands - or tried to - to assert when there is no payload in response, so the script is as follows:

     

    def response = messageExchange.response?.contentAsString
if(response == null){
// example
assert response.size() == 0, "No content returned in Response"
}


    but again - whether there was a <results /> tag in the payload (forcing response to me XML) or whether the was nothing in the response (forcing response to be json) the script always passes!

     

    Am I missing something? essentially the script passes whether the response includes a payload AND when it doesn't!


    I am very grateful for your help though!

     

    richie