Baseline™ Testline

Testline is an automated tool for unit- and regression tests, specifically aimed at message-based integration solutions. It is designed primarily for JMS-based messaging, but has full support for pure WMQ messaging and file based messaging, as well as an extendable architecture which allows for other data providers (such as databases, an extension planned for future releases).

As the illustration shows, what Testline basically does is the following:

• Reads a message. This can either be hard-coded in the script, or read from a file on disk
• Writes the message to a PoD (Point of Delivery). A PoD is typically either a queue or a file
• Reads back another message from a PoD. Between steps 2 and 3, the unit being tested is typically run, triggered by the message put in step 2
• Validates the result message against a validation message. Testline provides a wide range of validation methods
• Compiles the result of the suite in a HTML-report

The basic workflow of the Testline application is illustrated below.



Testline includes a number of different validators. The Test script is easily written with e.g. XML Spy and validated automatically against it’s scheme.

What is Testline?
Testline is an automated tool for unit tests and regression tests, specifically aimed at message-based integration solutions. Testline is designed primarily for JMS-based messaging, but has full support for pure WMQ messaging and file based messaging, as well as an extendable architecture which allows for other data providers such as databases.

When to use Testline?

• When a new piece of software, system, driver or the operating system on the integration platform is updated or changed
• When an integration platform is moved to new hardware.
• When any other change is performed on the integration platform and you want to be sure that “this change won’t affect anything else”

Why Testline?
Testline is a scripted message comparer, and as such it can be used in a wide variety of ways. We want to emphasize two main test modes, Unit tests and Regression tests.

Unit tests

• Easy test case development
• Easy test case updates
• Forces developers to test all • Higher quality
• Shorter projects
• Minimizes CM

For each distinct function (unit) in the integration component being developed (e.g. a WMB message flow or an ICS collaboration), a separate Testline suite is developed, including both test message and validation message. As more cases are added and validated, the code is continuously proven
not to break any previously validated test cases. The suite of cases thus developed is then automatically ready for the second test mode.

Regression tests

• Quick and easy verification
• Few retest resources needed
• Shortens the test period
• Easy execution of all tests

Once all unit tests are completed using, the integration, along with its test suite, is deployed in a test environment. In this environment all previous integrations are already deployed (including their test suits).

By using Testline, all suites (including the newly deployed suite) can be run together, thus continuously verifying the integrity of the integration platform. The ability to verify the complete integration platform is a tremendous help for global changes.

How it works
The illustration above shows that what Testline basically does is the following:

1. Reads an input message. Data can either be hard-coded in the script, or read from a file on disk.
2. Writes the input message to a PoD (Point of Delivery). A PoD is typically either a queue or a file.
3. Reads back a result message. Between steps 2 and 3, the unit being tested is typically run, triggered by the input message put in step 2.
4. Validates the result message against a validation message. Testline provides a wide range of validation methods.
5. Compiles the result of the suite in a HTML-report.

Easy to install
Testline is installed by simply unzipping the distribution file anywhere.

Easy to configure
Each Testline suite is a single XML file. The file is structured with a sequence of actions to perform and it is validated against a XSD Schema.
Input test files and result files may be located anywhere.

System requirements
Testline requires Sun JRE 1.4 and will run on all platforms where Sun Java runs.