Record method calls in one session for replaying in future test sessions?

Question

I have a backend system which we use a third-party Java API to access from our own applications. I can access the system as a normal user along with other users, but I do no

Answer 1

I had the same needs some months ago for non-regression testing when planning a heavy technical refactoring of a large application and... I have found nothing available as a framework.

In fact, replaying may be particularly difficult and may only work in a specific context - no (or few) application with a standard complexity can be really considered as stateless. It is a common problem when testing persistence code with a relational database. To be relevant, the complete system initial state must be restored and each replay step must impact the global state the same way. It becomes a challenge when a system state is distributed into pieces like databases, files, memory... Let's guess what happens if a timestamp taken from a system's clock is used somewhere !

So a more pratical option is to only record... and then do a clever comparison for subsequent runs.

Depending of the number of runs you plan, a human-driven session on the application may be enough, or you have to investing in an automated scenario in a robot playing with your application user interface.

First to record: you can use dynamic proxy interface or aspect programming to intercept method call and to capture state before and after invocation. It may mean: dump concerned database tables, copy some files, serialize Java objects in text format like XML.

Then compare this reference capture with a new run. This comparison should be tuned to exclude any irrelevant elements from each piece of state, like row identifiers, timestamps, file names... to only compare data where your backend's added value shines.

Finally nothing really standard, and often a few specific scripts and codes may be enough to achieve the aim: detect as much errors as possible and try to prevent non-expected side-effects.