Starting a web application with coded UI tests in VS 2010 - visual-studio-2010

I have a solution with a web application and test project. The test application has coded ui tests of the web application. How can I get the web application to start up when the tests execute?
I've tried
adding a TestSetup method to start the web server via System.Diagnostics.Process. I don't like this because it seems clunky and the coded ui tests don't lend themselves to inheritance real well
adding a setup script in the testsettings to start the web server (same command line) via a batch file. However the batch file never exits and eventually times out. I've tried starting the web server via the start command, but that didn't work -- it works great when you run it from the command line, but not from the testsettings setup script.
I've thought about maybe just running IIS in the background and pointing it to a specific folder. Then deploy the web application to that folder. And let the test project test against IIS.
This seems like a lot of work though. There's got to be an easier way. I want to do this on several developer's machine and also on the TFS build machine via scheduled or continuous integration.
Any thoughts?
Thanks

I configure the web project (in the project properties) to be hosted on IIS. Its just 3 or 4 clicks away. It will prompt to create a virtual application. After that, build and run your project and it will be permanently hosted on IIS. So you can start Coded UI tests without manually starting the web server.

You could do what Gerardo Grignoli suggested and just host the site in IIS so that it's always on.
You could also just start the web project (Without Debugging if you want to debug your tests) and then run/debug the tests. In your tests, just use BrowserWindow.Launch("localhost:appPort/whateverPageToStartOn"); just fill in the port instead of appPort based on your IIS express settings.
In regards to running it on the TFS build machine, that seems like probably a questionable thing to do. You can test the deployed site (dev, test, prod, whatever) from a testing lab. Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) is one of the products that can do this.

Related

Specflow tests running on local web server

I am trying to use Specflow with Playwright in order to do BDD on a portal app developed but I am facing a small problem.
The Specflow project is a separate project with the ASP.Net core server that has the Api of the portal app (it is in Vue). Since the tests are pointing to a specific URL (currently localhost), before running the tests, I need to run the ASP.Net core & Vue project locally. Otherwise, Specflow & Playwright will not be able to do the test (as it will not find the localhost).
Is it any way I can force the run of the Web Server project? I tried to run it from outside Visual Studio with dotnet build and then dotnet run commands but somehow they are missing parameters (that exist while running it from inside VS) and apart from that, these commands must somehow be triggered while trying to run the tests.
I have seen solutions like creating a Docker image from a Docker Compose file in order to pack a .Net project & server in it before running the Specflow tests. Then in the BeforeTestRun hook using the FluentDocker to spin-up the server but I am not quite sure it is the easier (or best) solution.
Does anyone know how I can trigger running the .net core project (with the Vue pages)?
This is actually a pretty big question, with a pretty big answer, however this is well-trodden ground. The issue isn't so much a "specflow" issue as a general automated testing issue. Development practices like continuous integration and continuous delivery can help. Each one is too big for a single question, however I can answer this in more general terms.
In its simplest form, running automated tests locally involves these steps:
Build the application
Deploy the application to a real web server
Run tests
I'm going to assume you are developing in a Windows environment, however every operating system has some sort of command line scripting solution available. The scripting language might change, but the overall idea will not.
Configure a web server. In Windows, this would be Internet Information Services (IIS).
Add a new "application" (or "IIS app" as some people call it) to your localhost web server. Point the physical directory to the root directory for the web project. Repeat this for each web site or web app your system requires.
Write a PowerShell script that gives you an easy way to build and deploy the applications to your local web server.
This script should use publish profiles set up in Visual Studio, which allows you to publish directly from Visual Studio before invoking tests manually through Test Explorer.
Write a PowerShell script used has a "harness" script to coordinate building, deploying locally, and then invoking dotnet test.
Running tests locally just requires a single line of PowerShell to invoke your test harness script:
.\Scripts\Run-Tests.ps1 -solutionDir . -tags BlogPosts,Create
# Skip deploying in case web apps haven't changed:
.\Scripts\Run-Tests.ps1 -solutionDir . -tags BlogPosts,Create -deploy:False

How to configure ASPNET Core with Docker using VSTS to build, run tests and deploy to Azure with Unit Tests and Environment Variables

I'm trying to do something incredibly trivial I thought but apparently this needs to be hard. And yes there are bits and pieces throughout stack overflow but they're either out of date or don't actually work.
I've got an asp.net core site that I've dockerized with the add/docker/linux command.
In VSTS I can build the image and publish it with 2 docker-compose items.
And then I can release the image with the release management.
What I can't figure out how to do:
run dotnet test on my image and report the results to VSTS
Setup environment variables on Azure App Service Container that get properly passed into the image when its run.
On #1, I cannot find any up-to-date documentation on how to set it up so that while developing unit tests don't run unless specifically specified (and if I tell it to run tests in visual studio they should run in the docker image! I can get them to run always, but that's a waste of time while developing if they run every time you start debugging!).
And I cannot figure out how to use either docker-compose or the new VS.net 2017 15.8 way with just docker run commands to run the tests. It seems to me that I would need a new dockerfile just for the tests to run and have it generate and then discard the image that was created. But I can't figure out how to do this or even if this is the right way.
How should this be setup to do unit tests? (I've gone through 5 pages of google search results and none of them work right.)
On #2, setting and application setting in the App Service does not pass the values in docker run. I've tried everything and they never get passed. How do you pass environment variables on Azure so that the run command gets the right -e parameters?
For#1 you could use dotnet test command. This will generate a .trx file that VSTS can pick up and render a nice test report. You just need to setup the “Publish Test Results” task.
dotnet test --logger trx --results-directory /var/temp
More details please take a look at this blog: Running your unit tests with Visual Studio Team Services and Docker Compose
For#2 not totally get your point, if you want to override environment variable values on VSTS and use the value on Azure App Service Container. Please try this solution through powershell script: How to override values of environment variables on VSTS tasks
Beside suggest you also go through this blog shows how Docker Deployment to Azure App Service (Linux) using VSTS including both CI and CD. Which maybe helpful to you.

How to set default value for <project>.SetParameters.xml for deployment page

During build msbuild creates deployment packages for several my web projects (and wcf services) which I want to run from command line (as last step of automated build process) to deploy to several different servers.
The structure of IIS application folders is the same on each one.
My problem is that I cannot find how to configure (override default value of IIS application). It is in .SetParameters.xml, like:
which is not what I want.
I read that it is possible to create parameters.xml in the project and put there something like:
or some say
I'm trying this but it does not change content of .SetParameters.xml
Can you advice what am I missing, or/and alternative way to do this.
Thanks!
If you want to deploy the web application package manually—either by running the .deploy.cmd file or by running MSDeploy.exe from the command line—there's nothing to stop you manually editing the SetParameters.xml file prior to the deployment. However, if you’re working on an enterprise-scale solution, you may need to deploy a web application package as part of a larger, automated build and deployment process. In this scenario, you need the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) to modify the SetParameters.xml file for you. You can do this by using the MSBuild XmlPoke task.
For more information, please refer to: https://www.asp.net/web-forms/overview/deployment/web-deployment-in-the-enterprise/configuring-parameters-for-web-package-deployment

How to run coded UI tests from TFS?

I'm new to Coded UI testing and TFS. I've written a coded UI test for my web application and looking for different options to automatically run it. Apparently the first option is to run it from visual studio. I have also found an article explaining how to associate a test method with a test case however I don't know whether I can run my test method (s) from TFS or not? How about running them with my build? I know the unit tests can be run with the build however I'm not sure about coded UI tests.
Yes, it is possible for you to run Coded UI test in the TFS build process.
Firstly, you need to configure the Team Build Service Host run as an interactive process. See this link.
Secondly, add the Coded UI test project into TFS Version Control.
Thirdly, create a build definition to build the Coded UI test project, and also specify tests to run.
Please have a check of this blog for the detailed steps: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mathew_aniyan/archive/2009/05/26/coded-ui-test-in-a-team-build.aspx

Deploying test data when executing a test remotely from MS Testing Center

I am developing automated tests in Visual Studio 2010 (Ultimate). I can execute my test locally trough VS and remotely on a test agent through MS Testing Center. Everything works well.
The problem for me now is that I want to deploy test data with my tests. This test data is ordinary image files that is to be processes by the application I am testing. Deploying these files works fine as long as I'm running the test locally. I can either use the "Deployment" section in my Local.testsettings file, or I can use the DeploymentItems attribute in my code. Of course - the files that I want to deploy are included in my project file.
However, when I execute my test through the test agent - it will not deploy any files. And as I said, the test itself works fine both locally and remote.
I have been facing the same problem recently.
It sounds like you have the DeploymentTest attribute like this:
<DeploymentItem #"MyProject.Tests\TestDataSubfolder>\", "OutputDir">
Just change it to:
<DeploymentItem #"TestDataSubfolder>\", "OutputDir">
(That means remove the project folder, since the project folder does not exit on the remote machine).

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