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Rational Performance Tester: Substituting request content from a file

Preventive Service Planning


Abstract

With the release of IBM Rational Performance Tester 8.1.1 there is now the built in functionality to substitute request content from a file. Prior to version 8.1.1 this would have had to have been done through the custom code interface.

Content

This example below will demonstrate how to implement this new functionality using a simple test.

The recorded test consists of two pages:

PAGE 1: An ASP based form to upload a file from the file system

PAGE 2: The acknowledgement from the web server that the file was uploaded

In the original recording a text file named ‘RPT1.txt’ was uploaded; the contents of the file are as follows:

“this is the file uploaded during the initial recording”

A datapool was created consisting of one record; the path to the file that will be uploaded at run time

The file in the datapool is called ‘RPT2.txt; the contents of the file are as follows:


    “This is the file used in the Rational Performance Tester datapool”

The Recorded test will contain a request (POST) that uploads the file. From an HTTP standpoint the POST request recorded will look something like this:


    POST /ToFileSystem.asp HTTP/1.1

    Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/x-shockwave-flash,

    Content-Length: 254

    Connection: Keep-Alive

    Cache-Control: no-cache

    ServerSuppliedCookie: ASPSESSIONIDQCTAARDA=NBHLCGDBOMEGCBAGMLPENPCF

    -----------------------------7da2322c70648

    Content-Disposition: form-data; name="File1"; filename="C:\RPTupload\RPT1.txt"

    Content-Type: text/plain
    this is the file uploaded during the initial recording
    -----------------------------7da2322c70648—


You can see the file name and text being uploaded

From the Rational Performance Tester Test Editor the POST request contains three data chunk entries (Depending on the application, the number of entries will differ).


The Data Chunk data corresponds to the POST data of the request

To substitute the contents of the data being uploaded first select the request data that you want to substitute and select the Modify button;


Right-click, and then select Substitute > Select Data Source.

Associate the appropriate datapool column for the substitution

When complete, be sure that data content is highlighted in dark green (indicating a substitution is in place) and that the File Contents Substituter is checked

When the test is executed you can verify that the datapooled file was uploaded by looking at the Protocol data view of the Test log

Note: In this example and additional datapool substitution was made for actual file name being uploaded; this would be a standard datapool substitution as opposed to the content substitute outlined in the technote. This may be necessary depending on the specific application under test.

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Product Synonym

Rational Performance Tester

Document Information

Modified date:
16 June 2018

UID

swg21424328