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Meisinotti's avatar
Meisinotti
Occasional Contributor
6 years ago

XML declaration in request disappears after property transfer

I am using application/xml requests in http test steps. At the beginnig of each request a xml declariation is needed <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-15"?>. It works fine as long as I run the r...
disappear
Property Transfer
xml declaration
  • Meisinotti's avatar
    Meisinotti
    6 years ago

    So, alt least I got a way that worked for me - than you for you help!

     

    //next line parses the Properties step and gets the value of the declaration
    def declaration = testRunner.testCase.testSuite.getPropertyValue("prexml")
    log.info(declaration)

     

    //next line parses the Properties step and gets the value of the XML without the declaration
    def XML = context.expand('${UC1.116_init#Request}')
    log.info(XML)

     

    //concatenate the values together adding a <br> between them
    def wellFormedXML = declaration +" \n" + XML
    log.info(wellFormedXML)

     

    testRunner.getTestCase().getTestStepByName("UC1.116_init").getProperty('Request').setValue(wellFormedXML)

Meisinotti's avatar
Meisinotti
Occasional Contributor

Thank you for your answer! Unfortunately things are more complicated:

 

1. It's possible that the XML request is not well formed. Unfortunatele I cannot correct this, because I have to deal with a server which cannot handle standard XML.

 

2. The test step fails because the request is not even accepted by the server (because of the missing declaration) - Error 500.

 

3. You suggest to use an event handler to add the declaration again. But how exatly do I have to do that? Do I need a groovy skript or how can the be accomplished?

 

Regards

Marcus

richie's avatar
richie
Community Hero
6 years ago

Hey Meisinotti 

 

Firstly unless you've got tailored responses that have altered how the app server handles error responses, I wouldn't expect a 500 response from a malformed xml request - 5xx http status codes are server errors - not client errors.   I'd expect something like a 400 (bad request) if you were injecting malformed xml - so I'd suggest you double check the server is working fine, cos it doesnt matter how wellformed/malformed your xml is if the app server's busted :)

 

Also - can you please describe clearly (maybe a screenshot as well) as what you have in your test right now - you say you pass the XML content via a property transfer and the xfer is actually removing the declaration?  I'm just wondering how the content/payload of your requests are setup.

 

I've thought about it a bit more and it's probably feasible to do this without bothering with the event handler - all you need to do is to concatenate the xml declaration and a line break before the parent tag in your xml. 

One of the coders on the forum will probably whip out some 3 lines of cool code that does the job - but in the meantime....

 

I've only used a couple of event handlers before - so I'm not sure - but I'm guessing it would be something like 'TestRunListener.beforeStep' or 'TestRunListener.beforeRun'  - essentially depending on your testcase object (teststep) hierarchy, I'm thinking for this to work, you'd want the event to fire before the specific test step is submitted to the endpoint.

 

UPDATE to ticket:  I had another look at the event handlers help page - it says you'll know which event handlers to pick if you know the soapUI API (which I dont) - it mentions the SubmitListener (relates to submitting a request) and RequestFilter (relates to sending a request) - unsure what the difference between submitting and sending is here - but anyway - I'll play around with it later

 

The 'Target' value you'd specify would be the relevant test step name.

 

In the field below after the correct event handler is selected you'd need a bit of groovy to grab the content request, concatenate the declaration to the request content and publish the concatenated whole to the endpointn - so something LIKE the following (Im not a groovy coder - -this is a guess on my part)

 

def extractedRequest = context.expand( '${REST Request#Request}' ).toString();

def wellFormedXML = "<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-15"?> \n" + extractedRequest

//bit unsure how to finish it off cos Im not very au fait with event handlers nor groovy - but....
//....Im guessing you'd want to publish the the wellFormedXML variable as the content of the request, but I'm...
//....wondering how the event handler deals with this - so I'll look at this later tonight

I need to do a little investigation as to how to publish the concatenated xml content to the endpoint after the event handler has fired - like I say above - I've only used 2 different types of event handler and both times it was on a response not a request - I'll play with it tonight and try and give you an answer by tomorrow - but quite possibly one of the coders will answer this too.

 

Cheers,

 

rich

  • richie's avatar
    richie
    Community Hero
    6 years ago
    Hey,

    Ive just thought of an easier way of doing it without using the event handlers...you'll still need a bit of groovy, but even my poor groovy skills are good enough to do this. The approach im thinking about means youll need to xfer the xml content to a properties step (rather than directly to the next request step) append the declaration to the content and pass to the step that is currently failing.

    Im travelling now, but i'll respond when im home

    Ta

    Rich
    • richie's avatar
      richie
      Community Hero
      6 years ago

      Hey Meisinotti 

       

      Ok - this is how I'd do it - if I understand correctly you said when you xfer the payload to your request, the xfer process drops the declaration?

       

      Ok - to use the process I put together you need a Properties step - within the Properties step you have 3 attributes - XML (value is the payload without the XML), declaration (value is the declaration value) and a blank wellFormedXML property

       

      The following groovy concatenates the appends the XML to the end of the declaration and writes the amalgamated value to the wellFormedXML property so you can pick that up and use it as you need.

       

      Im sure the other lads would like have this in one line - but it gets the job done (which is the nicest thing you can say about it) - groovy is below:

       

      //next line parses the Properties step and gets the value of the XML without the declaration
def XML = testRunner.testCase.getTestStepByName("Properties").getPropertyValue("XML")
log.info(XML)

//next line parses the Properties step and gets the value of the declaration
def declaration = testRunner.testCase.getTestStepByName("Properties").getPropertyValue("declaration")
log.info(declaration)

//concatenate the values together adding a <br> between them
def wellFormedXML = declaration +" \n" + XML
log.info(wellFormedXML)

//define the properties step and write the merged XML to the Properties step
def propertiesStep = context.testCase.testSteps["Properties"] 
propertiesStep.setPropertyValue("wellFormedXML", wellFormedXML)

      Then in the payload of your request  you can just specify '${Properties#wellFormedXML}' to grab the value you need.

       

       

      Does that work for you?  Starting to think I may have totally gone off track there....

       

      cheers,

       

      rich

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

        Hi all,

        Thank you for all the detailed instructions, richie !

         

        Meisinotti, did the above suggestions help you? 

         

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