NAME

HTTP::WebTest::Plugins - Plugin developers documentation.

SYNOPSIS

Not applicable.

DESCRIPTION

This document is good starting point for developers who wish to extend HTTP::WebTest functionality with external plugins.

ABOUT PLUGINS

Plugin can be used to add new test types and add new report types. Plugin is just a Perl package which defines class with a number of methods which if present are called by HTTP::WebTest at various stages of test.

Each plugin package should subclass HTTP::WebTest::Plugin. Report plugins can subclass HTTP::WebTest::ReportPlugin which is subclass of HTTP::WebTest::Plugin instead of it. HTTP::WebTest::ReportPlugin defines some helper methods useful in report plugin and handles some test parameters common for report plugins.

REQUIRED METHODS

Each plugin package should provide following method:

param_types

Returns

A string which contains information about supported test parameters and their types.

String has following format:

    PARAM1 TYPE1 PARAM2 TYPE2 PARAM3 TYPE3 ... PARAMN TYPEN

PARAM is a name of test parameter and TYPE is it's type specification. It should be separated by any whitespace character.

Each test parameter type is defined by method in HTTP::WebTest::Plugin. Type foobar is defined as method check_foobar in this package. See its documentation for list of all check_**** methods which define all known test types.

Example

    sub param_types {
        return q(ignore_case   yesno
                 text_forbid   list
                 text_require  list
                 regex_forbid  list
                 regex_require list);
    }

This is from HTTP::WebTest::Plugin::TextMatchTest. It defines following test parameters: ignore_case, text_forbid, text_require, regex_forbid, regex_require. yesno and list are test parameter types.

OPTIONAL METHODS

Each plugin package may provide following methods:

start_tests ()

Called before runing test sequence. You can put here some initalization. Report plugins can use this hook to create header of report.

end_tests ()

Called when test sequence is finished. You can put here some finialization code. Report plugins can use this hook to finish creation of report.

prepare_request ()

Called before HTTP::WebTest does HTTP request. Various properties of request here can be set here.

check_response ()

Called once HTTP::WebTest did HTTP request and have got HTTP response. Test checks should be placed here.

report_test ()

Called when HTTP::WebTest got HTTP response after <check_response> hooks. Normally used by report plugins to generate piece of report about test step just done.

Returns

This methods should return result of test checks made in following form:

    [ [ TEST_GROUP1_NAME, TEST_RESULT1, TEST_RESULT2, ... ],
      [ TEST_GROUP2_NAME, TEST_RESULT1, TEST_RESULT2, ... ],
      ...
    ];

TEST_GROUP_NAME is a string which describes a group of test checks and their results. It is used during generation of test report.

TEST_RESULT is an HTTP::WebTest::TestResult object.

EXAMPLES

Well, why anybody need examples when source code of all HTTP::WebTest plugins is available.

Some good examples are:

HTTP::WebTest::Plugin::Cookies

Plugin which uses both prepare_request and check_response hooks.

HTTP::WebTest::Plugin::StatusTest

Very simple plugin which defines only check_response hook.

HTTP::WebTest::Plugin::DefaultReport

Example of report plugin. Uses start_tests, report_test and end_tests hooks.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2001,2002 Ilya Martynov. All rights reserved.

This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the Perl Artistic License.

SEE ALSO

HTTP::WebTest

HTTP::WebTest::API

HTTP::WebTest::Plugin

HTTP::WebTest::ReportPlugin

cpanm HTTP::WebTest

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install HTTP::WebTest