new version 3.9.0 of ReadyApi introduced smart assertion and deprecated Valid HTTP Status Codes

[liulucy]

The new version 3.9.0 of ReadyApi introduced smart assertion and deprecated Valid HTTP Status Codes assertion and some others.
We have a lot of projects that already use the HTTP status code assertion. Is there a automated way / do you provide a tool that would help migrate from the old assertions to the new smart assertion. It is going to be a significant effort to manually convert to the new smart assertion?

[nmrao]

After looking at your question, happened to see the release notes.
https://support.smartbear.com/readyapi/docs/general-info/whats-new.html
It is mentioned that they continue to work now. But, yes, may be removed in future versions.
And your concern is very much valid, hopeful that Smartbear team might come up with something to deal this situation. These are very common assertions broadly used, I believe.

[JoostDG]

I completely agree!

As per the documentation:

"The Valid HTTP Status Codes assertion has been superseded by the Smart Assertion and is deprecated as of ReadyAPI 3.9.0. It will remain available for the time being, but we suggest that you switch to the Smart Assertion."  (https://support.smartbear.com/readyapi/docs/testing/assertions/reference/compliance/http-valid.html)

Also, in 3.8.0 you could already create a "Smart Assertion" by clicking on the "Smart Assertion" button. This feature now seems rebranded in 3.9.0 to "Message Content Assertion" and also is deprecated... Confusing choice of name to say the least... 🤔 

"https://support.smartbear.com/readyapi/docs/testing/assertions/reference/property/message.html"

I always welcome new features, but it's not customer friendly to just introduce breaking changes like that. I know they would still work for the time being, but for such important widely-used assertions I'd want to see backwards compatibility or auto-migrations done by the tool. In the field of automating API tests those concepts should not be such a surprise to hear...

It's just impossible from SmartBear to expect everyone (including licensed users) to go and change all of those hundreds of individual assertions like that.

[nmrao]

I am not sure about Smart assertion and its features.
However, it seems to be possible with groovy to automatically convert existing assertions which are deprecated(most of them, never used couple of them) into script assertions at least.
Of course, it is difficult to come up generic script which can migrate for all user cases. For ex some might use directly values, some might use property expansions etc.,

[sonya_m]

Thank you JoostDG and Rao!

@liulucy Could you mark the reply that helped as a solution? Thank you!

[nmrao · Accepted solution]

May be you can have a look at this feature request from other community member
https://community.smartbear.com/t5/ReadyAPI-Feature-Requests/Re-insert-the-Assertion-HTTP/idi-p/2196...
and it also recieved a response from Smartbear staff saying they are not planning to remove the existing assertions. Probably you continue to use existing HTTP status code assertions as is.