Automating Web Testing

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

I would like to write a test suite to test the functionality of the ad server I am writing. I have looked at WWW::Mechanize and it seems that I can accomplish my task using this. But before I start full steam ahead with this I wanted to ask the opinions of people here on how they accomplish this?

I don't think that testing HTTP headers would be a big deal, but testing something like frequency capping and delivery order might be a little more tricky. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Comment on Automating Web Testing

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Re: Automating Web Testing by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Apr 09, 2006 at 12:53 UTC
You want Test::WWW::Mechanize. This will test any webserver anywhere written in any lanugage. If you want to control the webserver, too, you could look at Apache::Test. That's what mod_perl is tested with. I was hoping I could recommend using the Rails testsuite, but that simulates requests and responses using the Rails request and response mechanisms - it doesn't actually make a web request. My criteria for good software: Does it work? Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?	[reply]
Re: Automating Web Testing by hesco (Deacon) on Apr 11, 2006 at 08:17 UTC
I like WWW::Mechanize but have found that it will not successfully navigate javascript in the tests. I have to turn the javascript off in order to test the forms hiding underneath. I have nothing in my own code that can not easily be derived from Test::Tutorial and WWW::Mechanize. -- Hugh	[reply]
Re: Automating Web Testing by BarMeister (Beadle) on Apr 12, 2006 at 04:43 UTC
I am using a combination of WWW::Mechanize and Test::More and they are working quite well together. I also tried using HTML::Lint as well but it seems to parse the HTML incorrectly so I do that parsing myself....keeps saying I have unmatched <a> tags even though I have manually reviewed the tags myself and found nothing wrong with them. Thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction.	[reply]