Test Format¶
Gabbi tests are expressed in YAML as a series of HTTP requests with their expected response:
tests:
- name: retrieve root
GET: /
status: 200
This will trigger a GET
request to /
on the configured Target Host. The
test will pass if the response’s status code is 200
.
Test Structure¶
The top-level tests
category contains an ordered sequence of test
declarations, each describing the expected response to a given request:
Metadata¶
Key | Description | Notes |
---|---|---|
name |
The test’s name. Must be unique within a file. | required |
desc |
An arbitrary string describing the test. | |
verbose |
If True or all (synonymous), prints a
representation of the current request and
response to stdout , including both headers
and body. If set to headers or body , only
the corresponding part of the request and
response will be printed. If the output is a TTY,
colors will be used. See
VerboseHttp for
details. |
defaults to
False |
skip |
A string message which if set will cause the test to be skipped with the provided message. | defaults to
False |
xfail |
Determines whether to expect this test to fail. Note that the test will be run anyway. |
Note: When tests are generated dynamically, the TestCase
name will include
the respective test’s name
, lowercased with spaces transformed to _
. In
at least some test runners this will allow you to select and filter on test
name.
Request Parameters¶
Key | Description | Notes |
---|---|---|
any uppercase string | Any such key is considered an HTTP method, with the corresponding value expressing the URL. This is a shortcut combining GET: /index
corresponds to: method: GET
url: /index
|
|
method |
The HTTP request method. | defaults to
GET |
url |
The URL to request. This can either be a full path (e.g. “/index”) or a fully qualified URL (i.e. including host and scheme, e.g. “http://example.org/index”) — see Target Host for details. | required |
request_headers |
A dictionary of key-value pairs representing request header names and values. These will be added to the constructed request. | |
query_parameters |
A dictionary of query parameters that
will be added to the url as query
string. If that URL already contains a
set of query parameters, those wil be
extended. See Example Tests for a
demonstration of how the data is
structured. |
|
data |
A representation to pass as the body of
a request. Note that content-type in
request_headers should also be set —
see Data for details. |
|
redirects |
If True , redirects will
automatically be followed. |
defaults to
False |
ssl |
Determines whether the request uses SSL
(i.e. HTTPS). Note that the url ‘s
scheme takes precedence if present — see
Target Host for details. |
defaults to
False |
Response Expectations¶
Key | Description | Notes |
---|---|---|
status |
The expected response status code.
Multiple acceptable response codes
may be provided, separated by ||
(e.g. 302 || 301 — note, however,
that this indicates ambiguity, which
is generally undesirable). |
defaults to
200 |
response_headers |
A dictionary of key-value pairs
representing expected response header
names and values. If a header’s value
is wrapped in /.../ , it will be
treated as a regular expression. |
|
response_forbidden_headers |
A list of headers which must not be present. | |
response_strings |
A list of string fragments expected to be present in the response body. | |
response_json_paths |
A dictionary of JSONPath rules paired
with expected matches. Using this
rule requires that the content being
sent from the server is JSON (i.e. a
content type of If the value is wrapped in |
|
poll |
A dictionary of two keys:
This makes it possible to poll for a resource created via an asynchronous request. Use with caution. |
Note that many of these items allow substitutions.
Default values for a file’s tests
may be provided via the top-level
defaults
category. These take precedence over the global defaults
(explained below).
For examples see the gabbi tests, Example Tests and the gabbi-demo tutorial.
Response Handlers¶
response_*
keys are examples of Response Handlers. Custom handlers may be
created by test authors for specific use cases. See Content Handlers for more
information.
Substitution¶
There are a number of magical variables that can be used to make reference to the state of a current test or the one just prior. These are replaced with real values during test processing. They are processed in the order given.
$SCHEME
: The current scheme/protocol (usuallyhttp
orhttps
).$NETLOC
: The host and potentially port of the request.$ENVIRON['<environment variable>']
: The name of an environment variable. Its value will replace the magical variable. If the string value of the environment variable is"True"
or"False"
then the resulting value will be the corresponding boolean, not a string.$COOKIE
: All the cookies set by anySet-Cookie
headers in the prior response, including only the cookie key and value pairs and no metadata (e.g.expires
ordomain
).$LAST_URL
: The URL defined in the prior request, after substitutions have been made.$LOCATION
: The location header returned in the prior response.$HEADERS['<header>']
: The value of any header from the prior response.$RESPONSE['<json path>']
: A JSONPath query into the prior response. See JSONPath for more on formatting.
Where a single-quote character, '
, is shown above you may also use a
double-quote character, "
, but in any given expression the same
character must be used at both ends.
All of these variables may be used in all of the following fields:
url
query_parameters
data
request_headers
response_strings
response_json_paths
(on the value side of the key value pair)response_headers
(on the value side of the key value pair)response_forbidden_headers
With these variables it ought to be possible to traverse an API without any explicit statements about the URLs being used. If you need a replacement on a field that is not currently supported please raise an issue or provide a patch.
As all of these features needed to be tested in the development of gabbi itself, the gabbi tests are a good source of examples on how to use the functionality. See also Example Tests for a collection of examples and the gabbi-demo tutorial.
Data¶
The data
key has some special handing to allow for a bit more
flexibility when doing a POST
or PUT
. If the value is not a
string (that is, it is a sequence or structure) it is treated as a
data structure which is turned into a JSON string. If the value is a
string that begins with <@
then the rest of the string is treated
as the name of a file to be loaded from the same directory as the YAML
file. If the value is an undecorated string, that’s the value.
When reading from a file care should be taken to ensure that a reasonable content-type is set for the data as this will control if any encoding is done of the resulting string value. If it is text, json, xml or javascript it will be encoded to UTF-8.