README

SpiderTester
============

SpiderTester is an automated integration-testing script that iterates over every page in your application.
It performs a few valuable tasks for you:

  - parses the html of every page, so if you have invalid html, you will be warned.
  - finds every link to within your site and follows it, whether static or dynamic.
  - finds every Ajax.Updater link and follows it.
  - finds every form and tries to submit it, filling in values where possible.
  
This is helpful in determining:

  - missing static pages (.html)
  - poor code coverage - forgot to test a file?  Don't wait for a user to find it.
  - simple fuzzing of form values.
  - automated testing of form paths.  Often we have forms which point to incorrect
    locations, and up until now this has been impossible to test in an automated fashion
    or without being strongly coupled to your code.

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USAGE

$ script/plugin install svn://caboo.se/plugins/court3nay/spider_test
$ script/generate integration_test spider_test

Load up the test/integration/spider_test.rb and make it look something like this, replacing 
your own implementation details where appropriate.  You'll probably want to load all of your
fixtures.

  require "#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/../test_helper"
  
  class SpiderTest < ActionController::IntegrationTest
    fixtures :users, :roles, :images, :categories
    include Caboose::SpiderIntegrator
  
    def test_spider
      get '/'
      assert_response :success
  
      spider(@response.body, '/')
    end
  
  end

If you require a login for your app, you'll need to specifically log in. I do it like:

  require "#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/../test_helper"
  
  class SpiderTest < ActionController::IntegrationTest
    fixtures :users, :roles, :images, :categories
    include Caboose::SpiderIntegrator
  
    def test_spider
      get '/sessions/new'
      assert_response :success
      post '/sessions/create', :login => 'admin', :password => 'test'
      assert session[:user]
      assert_response :redirect
      assert_redirected_to '/'
      follow_redirect!

      spider(@response.body, '/', 
               :verbose => true,
               :ignore_urls => ['/login', %r{^.+logout}, %r{^.+delete.?}, %r{^.+/destroy.?}], 
               :ignore_forms => [])
     end
  
  end


Todo:

  - better, aka more random, fuzzing.
    currently, I check the fieldname and change the data types accordingly.  It'd be
    good to have some more advanced algorithm in here
    
  - specify which actions to ignore
    you can modify this by editing the plugin and setting @visited_urls and @visited_forms
    but this should be more easily settable.

  x use hpricot instead of html::document
    
  x better capturing of errors
    instead of dying each time there's an error, store them all up so the user can fix
    'em all at once.


Please see CHANGELOG for more details.