Automating CGI Testing

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm refactoring a CGI web-site, and I want to create a test suite for the site as a whole (as opposed to just unit tests). My thinking is that this would both give me a way of detecting if my changes are introducing bugs and perhaps find currently undiscovered problems. It would also allow testing from remote locations so that, if something goes down, I could localize it without leaving my bedroom.

Is there any standard way of going about doing this? There is a CGI::Test module, but it has several limitations (no cookies) and hasn't been updated in a couple of years. I could see myself writing extensive LWP stuff to do this, but I'd prefer not to if it isn't necessary. How do other monks approach this?

Comment on Automating CGI Testing

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Re: Automating CGI Testing by adrianh (Chancellor) on Sep 17, 2003 at 14:48 UTC
For testing websites WWW::Mechanize is your friend. Other modules that may be of use include Test::HTTPStatus, Test::XML and Test::HTML::Content. Also take a look at Unit Testing Generated HTML and Small test harness for testing basic auth for some useful tips.	[reply]
Re: Automating CGI Testing by Corion (Patriarch) on Sep 17, 2003 at 14:57 UTC
I did write some tests for both sides of the fence - for one the tests in WWW::Mechanize and WWW::Mechanize::Shell exercise and check the client side, and for the server side, there is some rudimentary idea in CGI::Wiki::Simple, test `*52.t`, which does a setup, run and teardown of a CGI script. I haven't found any good frameworks to do end-to-end CGI testing, but CGI::Application allows you to easily redirect the output of the CGI. You will still have to set up all the environment variables though. `perl -MHTTP::Daemon -MHTTP::Response -MLWP::Simple -e ' ; # The $d = new HTTP::Daemon and fork and getprint $d->url and exit;#spider ($c = $d->accept())->get_request(); $c->send_response( new #in the HTTP::Response(200,$_,$_,qq(Just another Perl hacker\n))); ' # web` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Automating CGI Testing by tcf22 (Priest) on Sep 17, 2003 at 14:49 UTC
WWW::Mechanize may be of some use to you. - Tom	[reply]
Re: Automating CGI Testing by drfrog (Deacon) on Sep 17, 2003 at 19:01 UTC
all good tips that are good for program checks, but what about performance? i use siege / web siege, avail through freshmeat.net its good for stress testing the servers	[reply]