web testing with Ruby

[Jason Sweat]

Does anyone have suggestions for projects/libraries to web test code
(HTMLUnit like)?

I had this project bookmarked from a month or so ago on this list:
http://www.xpenguin.biz/download/webunit/index-en.html

But about 1/2 of the listed "libraries used" are no longer functioning links.

I also looked at watir http://wtr.rubyforge.org/
which looked nice, but unfortunately requires Internet Explorer via a
COM interface, and I am looking to run this test on a linux server via
cron.

Are there some other useful web testing libraries people could point me towards?

Thanks,

Regards,
Jason
http://blog.casey-sweat.us/

 

[James G. Britt]

Does anyone have suggestions for projects/libraries to web test code
(HTMLUnit like)?

Take a look at Michael Neumann's WWW::Mechanize. He has made it very
easy to code up an app to fetch a page, find pertinent content, follow
links, and so on.

It's on RubyForge, as part of the Wee project

http://rubyforge.org/projects/wee

James

 

[Jason Sweat]

Take a look at Michael Neumann's WWW::Mechanize. He has made it very
easy to code up an app to fetch a page, find pertinent content, follow
links, and so on.

It's on RubyForge, as part of the Wee project

http://rubyforge.org/projects/wee

Thanks, I will have a look at it.

Regards,
Jason

 

[Tim Sutherland]

Does anyone have suggestions for projects/libraries to web test code
(HTMLUnit like)?

I had this project bookmarked from a month or so ago on this list:
http://www.xpenguin.biz/download/webunit/index-en.html

But about 1/2 of the listed "libraries used" are no longer functioning links.

I also looked at watir http://wtr.rubyforge.org/
which looked nice, but unfortunately requires Internet Explorer via a
COM interface, and I am looking to run this test on a linux server via
cron.

Are there some other useful web testing libraries people could point me towards?

Selenium: http://selenium.thoughtworks.com/

Works with IE, Mozilla, Safari.

It uses client-side Javascript to control the browser. There is a Ruby
interface, or you can specify the tests as a bunch of HTML tables that have
actions and assertions. (There are also interfaces for Java, .NET and
Python.)

I haven't used the Ruby interface, but started using the table-based one
today.

 

[Jason Sweat]

Take a look at Michael Neumann's WWW::Mechanize. He has made it very
easy to code up an app to fetch a page, find pertinent content, follow
links, and so on.

It's on RubyForge, as part of the Wee project

http://rubyforge.org/projects/wee

I seem to be running into difficulty with mechanize.

$ ruby --version
ruby 1.9.0 (2005-02-08) [i686-linux]
$ gem --version
0.8.1
$ gem list --local | grep mech
mechanize (0.1.0)
$ cat test.rb
require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'

agent = WWW::Mechanize.new {|a| a.log = Logger.new(STDERR) }
page = agent.get('https://www.alcoadirect.com/')
p page.forms

$ ruby test.rb
I, [2005-02-08T09:30:10.092550 #1947] INFO -- : GET:
https://www.alcoadirect.com/
warning: peer certificate won't be verified in this SSL session
D, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.305853 #1947] DEBUG -- : request-header: accept => */*
D, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.393482 #1947] DEBUG -- : header: last-modified
: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 00:02:27 GMT
D, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.393568 #1947] DEBUG -- : header: content-type
: text/html
D, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.393607 #1947] DEBUG -- : header: date : Tue,
08 Feb 2005 15:30:43 GMT
D, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.393646 #1947] DEBUG -- : header: server : JRun
Web Server/3.0
D, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.393684 #1947] DEBUG -- : header:
transfer-encoding : chunked
I, [2005-02-08T09:30:14.554417 #1947] INFO -- : status: 200
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize.rb:115:in
`parse': undefined method `downcase' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize.rb:112:in
`call'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize/parsing.rb:14:in
`each_recursive'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize/parsing.rb:13:in
`each'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9/rexml/element.rb:916:in `each'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9/rexml/xpath.rb:49:in `each'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.9/rexml/element.rb:916:in `each'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize/parsing.rb:13:in
`each_recursive'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize/parsing.rb:15:in
`each_recursive'
... 136 levels...
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize/parsing.rb:13:in
`each_recursive'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize.rb:212:in
`parse_html'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9/gems/mechanize-0.1.0/lib/mechanize.rb:164:in
`forms'
from test.rb:6

Is the HTML parser perhaps dependant on well formed HTML? Is there a
more appropriate forum for me to raise this issue? Thanks.

Regards,
Jason

 

[James G. Britt]

I seem to be running into difficulty with mechanize.
...

agent = WWW::Mechanize.new {|a| a.log = Logger.new(STDERR) }
page = agent.get('https://www.alcoadirect.com/')
p page.forms

I wonder if the issue is the use of "https" ?

Can you get Mechanize to work with a non-SSL URL?


James

 

[Jason Sweat]

I wonder if the issue is the use of "https" ?

Can you get Mechanize to work with a non-SSL URL?

I don't think https is the issue:
After creating page I can do

page.inspect
=> "#<WWW:age:0xb7a0cad0 @code=\"200\", @watch_for_set=nil,
@uri=#<URI::HTTPS:0x..fdbd0689c URL:https://www.alcoadirect.com/>,
@body=\" \\r\\n<HTML dir=ltr>\\r\\n<HEAD>\\r\\n<TITLE>
...snip...
</TD>\\r\\n </TR>\\r\\n \\r\\n
</TABLE>\\r\\n
</TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>\\r\\n<hr size=1
width=760>\\r\\n</BODY>\\r\\n</HTML>\\r\\n\", @response=#<Net::HTTPOK
200 OK readbody=true>, @cookies=[]>"

It gives me the error when I try the page.forms method. Any other ideas?


Regards,
Jason

 

[James G. Britt]

I don't think https is the issue:
After creating page I can do

page.inspect
=> "#<WWW:age:0xb7a0cad0 @code=\"200\", @watch_for_set=nil,
@uri=#<URI::HTTPS:0x..fdbd0689c URL:https://www.alcoadirect.com/>,
@body=\" \\r\\n<HTML dir=ltr>\\r\\n<HEAD>\\r\\n<TITLE>
...snip...
</TD>\\r\\n </TR>\\r\\n \\r\\n
</TABLE>\\r\\n
</TD></TR></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>\\r\\n<hr size=1
width=760>\\r\\n</BODY>\\r\\n</HTML>\\r\\n\", @response=#<Net::HTTPOK
200 OK readbody=true>, @cookies=[]>"

It gives me the error when I try the page.forms method. Any other ideas?

Now this sounds familiar Ithough don';t tink I ever told Mike of my problems )

mechanize.rb, in the parse_html method, has ths code:

: @root.each_recursive {|node|
: name = node.name.downcase
: case name


If the node does not have a name attribute, then downcase
expectorates. I think.

Try changing that to
: name = node.name.to_s.downcase

or add a nil? test someplace

James

 

[Jason Sweat]

Try changing that to
: name = node.name.to_s.downcase

Changing all .downcase to .to_s.downcase worked for me.

Thanks!

Regards,
Jason

 

[Bret Pettichord]

I also looked at watir http://wtr.rubyforge.org/
which looked nice, but unfortunately requires Internet Explorer via a
COM interface, and I am looking to run this test on a linux server via
cron.

Watir has been made to work with Linux and Wine. Details:
http://advogato.org/person/superant/diary.html?start=76



_____________________
Bret Pettichord
www.pettichord.com