Oracle Soa Suite Unit test with Groovy (11g, 12c) - part 1

It's going to be a little long but if you stay until the last line, you are going to know what i did to create dynamic xml requests and responses usign the unit test framework of the Soa Suite with groovy. (yes, groovy!)

I'm going to give some background of the problem and later my own personal solution. Lets begin :D

[Update 30/06/2016] Wrote a second blog about subject with more functionality for the tests; JUnit test execution, pre load of dat and post processing of information. http://carlgira.blogspot.com.es/2016/06/oracle-soa-suite-unit-test-with-groovy.html

PROBLEM

I was trying to create Unit Test for some Bpel with several Web Service calls, human task, JCAs to database, and i get really frustated trying to create dynamic requests or responses using the tool within the Jdeveloper.

I wanted to re-create some fields, update dates etc.

The only thing i found was something that the TestSuites supports but the graphic wizards dont show. You can use small Xpath functions to replace values of the payloads in your TestSuite.

The next image shows the initiation message of a TestCase. You can see that after the payload, there is an element called "update". This element only receives two attributes, the "updateLocation" that refers a XpathLocation of a field to update, and the "updateXpathFunction" with the xpath function with the new value.

You could think that this could work but there is a problem with the Xpath functions you can use, there are only avalaible the "basic" Xpath functions https://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116/#corelib ( Node-Set, String, Boolean and math functions - check the link with the full list)

But there are also some diferences between versions of the Soa Suite that i check:

Soa Suite 11.1.1.7: Only basic Xpath functions
Soa Suite 11.1.1.7.3: After this versions they add several functions of the http://www.oracle.com/XSL/Transform/java/oracle.tip.pc.services.functions.Xpath20 that you can use, (all of them related with dates and durations).
Soa Suite 12.1.3: I check again if there was more supported functions in 12c but it seems that again you only can use the basic Xpath functions. (lost all the Xpath20 functions dont know why)

So, there are few options to create dynamic XML in your unit test.

SOLUTION

I love the way the SoapUI gives you the possibility to create dynamic request using incrusted groovy inside of your XML. So i've spent some time looking for doing this possible with the Soa Suite.

I tried for long to found the "spot" of code that i should replace to make this possible, and i found it :D. The basic idea is that you can create dynamic XML request or response using incrusted groovy.

The best way to explain what it does is with an example.

•  When you build the request add some code of groovy. In the next example you can see how a date is created and later a random integer value.

When you execute the test, those values are replaced and you get a dynamic XML!!

HOW IT WORKS

I had to look for the spot with minimun changes. I found it in the class oracle.integration.platform.testfwk.TestCase in the fabric-ext.jar

I create an exact copy of that class and add some code to execute the groovy code inside the method "populatePayload".

Finally, the idea is to add my jar to the server classpath and make sure that is loaded first that the original one.

You can see everything inside the sources

INSTALLATION/CONFIGURATION

These are all the instructions to make it work.

• Download the sources from github https://github.com/carlgira/soa-unit-test/tree/master/custom-test-case

• Create the jar (Soa 11.1.1.7 or 12.1.3, use a custom profile for your version)
• mvn -Dsoa-version=11.1.1.7 clean package
• mvn -Dsoa-version=12.1.3 clean package

• Copy the file custom-test-case-1.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar to the directory Middleware\Oracle_SOA1\soa\modules\oracle.soa.fabric_11.1.1 in 11g or in the Middleware/soa/soa/modules/oracle.soa.fabric_11.1.1 on 12c.

• Add the custom-test-case-1.0-jar-with-dependencies.jar in the classpath of the MANIFEST file of the jar oracle.soa.fabric.jar. Make sure that this file appears before than the fabric-ext.jar in the classpath variable. (create a backup of jar before the modification)

•  Reboot your server

•  Now you can add to your XML messages in the Jdeveloper the groovy code :D

SUMMARY

• The utility allow you to create dynamic XML messages with groovy.
• You need to change the classpath to make sure to load the modified class.
• This utility is intended to your test environment.

Thanks! i hope someone find this useful.