Automate Website Testing 1

[kliz0328]

I was just wondering if there was a way to automate the testing of a website rather than going in and having users, poke through every little in and out everytime an update is made. I was just wondering if there was a way to do this. I have heard some things about Visual Studio .Net Enterprise Architecture having this capability but cannot find anything on the web supporting this claim.

 

[vkarthik]

One way is, write scripts to launch the various URLs involved in the website by passing different GET and POST parameters. When you get back the output stream, look for keywords that prove that your returned page is fine.

Use some URL sniffer utility to see the parameters that are being passed to the server when you browse the site normally. Note down all this and mimic it with the script.

 

[vkarthik]

To add more, suppose you want to check if all your web pages are present on the server (or if they've been deleted or renamed by mistake). Make a list of all such URLs. Use any language and write a script to connect to each url and get back the return code. Check the returned http header for a 404 (page not found) code.

 

[kliz0328]

is there a way to write scripts that would launch the login URL, and enter a valid username/password ans submit the page?

 

[vkarthik]

I'm no good at vbscript. But this can be done very easily with perl or java. Anyway, I did a google search on "vbscript launching url" and got this

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpost.php?bbsubject_id=3297

 

[kliz0328]

do you know where to go to maybe see some java examples of this?

 

[vkarthik]

Again, u can google it. This is what I got

http://javaalmanac.com/egs/java.net/GetHeaders.html

In particular, you should look for HttpUrlConnection class (

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/).

If you aren't comfortable with the javadoc, just google for a tutorial on that class.