README

============================
    SST - Web Test Framework
============================

:Web Home: http://testutils.org/sst
:Project Home: https://launchpad.net/selenium-simple-test
:PyPI: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/sst
:License: Apache License, Version 2.0
:Author: Copyright (c) 2011-2013 Canonical Ltd.


---------------------------------
    Automated Testing with Python
---------------------------------

SST (selenium-simple-test) is a web test framework that uses Python 
to generate functional browser-based tests.

Tests are made up of scripts, created by composing actions that drive
a browser and assert conditions. You have the flexibilty of the full
Python language, along with a convenient set of functions to simplify
web testing.

SST consists of:

 * user actions and assertions (API) in Python
 * test case loader (generates/compiles scripts to unittest cases)
 * console test runner
 * data parameterization/injection
 * selectable output reports
 * selectable browsers
 * headless (xvfb) mode
 * screenshots on errors
    
Test output can be displayed to the console, saved as an HTML report, or 
JUnit-compatible XML for compatibility with CI systems.


-----------
    Install
-----------

SST can be installed from `PyPI <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/sst>`_ using 
`pip <http://www.pip-installer.org>`_::
    
    pip install -U sst

For example, on an Ubuntu/Debian system, you could Install SST (system-wide) like this::

    $ sudo apt-get install python-pip xvfb
    $ sudo pip install -U sst
    
* note: `xvfb` is only needed if you want to run SST in headless mode
 
 
---------------------------
    Example SST test script
---------------------------

a sample test case in SST::

    from sst.actions import *

    go_to('http://www.ubuntu.com/')
    assert_title_contains('Ubuntu homepage')


------------------------------------
    Running a test with SST
------------------------------------

Create a Python script (.py) file, and add your test code.

Then call your test script from the command line, using `sst-run`::

    $ sst-run mytest.py


-------------------------------
    API reference (sst.actions)
-------------------------------

Test scripts perform actions in the browser as if they were a user.
SST provides a set of "actions" (functions) for use in your tests.
These actions are defined in the following API:

 * `API Reference <http://testutils.org/sst/actions.html>`_
 
 
------------------------------------
    Command line options for sst-run
------------------------------------

Usage: `sst-run <options> [testname]`

* Calling sst-run with testname(s) as arguments will just run
  those tests. The testnames should not include '.py' at
  the end of the filename.

* You may optionally create a data file for data-driven
  testing.  Create a '^' delimited txt data file with the same
  name as the test, plus the '.csv' extension.  This will
  run a test using each row in the data file (1st row of data
  file is variable name mapping)

Options::

  -h, --help                show this help message and exit
  -d DIR_NAME               directory of test case files
  -r REPORT_FORMAT          results report format (html, xml, console)
  -b BROWSER_TYPE           select webdriver (Firefox, Chrome, Ie, etc)
  -j                        disable javascript in browser
  -m SHARED_MODULES         directory for shared modules
  -q                        output less debugging info during test run
  -V                        print version info and exit
  -s                        save screenshots on failures
  -x                        run browser in headless xserver
  --failfast                stop test execution after first failure
  --debug                   drop into debugger on test fail or error
  --with-flags=FLAGS        comma separated list of flags to run tests with
  --disable-flag-skips      run all tests, disable skipping tests due to flags
  --extended-tracebacks     Add extra information (page source) to failure reports
  --browsermob=BROWSERMOB   enable browsermob proxy (launcher location)
  --test                    run selftests


-----------------
  Interactive use
-----------------

After installing sst, you can experiment with it from the python interactive
interpreter by calling `start()` to launch the browser (Firefox by default). 
After that, you can call any of the actions as you would use them in a test::

    >>> from sst.actions import *
    >>> start()

        Starting Firefox
    >>> go_to('http://google.com')
        Going to... http://google.com
        Waiting for get_element
    >>> 


--------------------
    Organizing tests
--------------------

For logical organization of tests, you can use directories in your filesystem.
SST will recursively walk your directory tree and gather all tests for
execution.

For example, a simple test setup might look like::

    /selenium-simple-test
        /mytests
            foo.py

and you would call this from the command line::

    $ sst-run -d mytests

A more complex setup might look like::

    /selenium-simple-test
        /mytests
            /project_foo
                /feature_foo
                    foo.py
            /project_bar
                feature_bar.py
                feature_baz.py
            /shared
                module.py
                utils.py

and you would still call this from the command like::

    $ sst-run -d mytests

SST will find all of the tests in subdirectories (including symlinks) and execute 
them. SST won't look in directories starting with an underscore. This allows you 
to put Python packages/modules directly in your test directories if you want. A 
better option is to use the shared directory.


--------------------
    Shared directory
--------------------

SST allows you to have a directory called `shared` in the top level directory
of your tests, which is added to `sys.path`. Here you can keep helper modules
used by all your tests. `sst-run` will not run Python files in the `shared`
directory as tests.

By default SST looks in the test directory you specify to find `shared`,
alternatively you can specify a different directory using the `-m` command
line argument to `sst-run`.

If there is no `shared` directory in the test directory, then `sst-run` will
walk up from the test directory to the current directory looking for one. This
allows you to run tests just from a subdirectory without having to explicitly
specify where the shared directory is.


---------------------
    sst.config module
---------------------

Inside tests you can import the `sst.config` module to know various things about the current test
environment. The `sst.config` module has the following information::

    from sst import config

    # is javascript disabled?
    config.javascript_disabled

    # which browser is being used?
    config.browser_type

    # full path to the shared directory
    config.shared_directory

    # full path to the results directory
    config.results_directory
    
    # is browsermob proxy enabled?
    config.browsermob_enabled

    # flags for the current test run
    config.flags


------------------------
    Disabling Javascript
------------------------

If you need to disable Javascript for an individual test you can do it by
putting the following at the start of the test::

    JAVASCRIPT_DISABLED = True
    
    
--------------------------------
    Development on Ubuntu/Debian
--------------------------------

* SST is primarily being developed on Linux, specifically Ubuntu. It should work 
  fine on other platforms, but any issues (or even better - patches) should be 
  reported on the Launchpad project.

* Get a copy of SST Trunk, install requirements, and run self-tests/examples 
  from the branch::

    $ sudo apt-get install bzr python-pip xvfb
    $ bzr branch lp:selenium-simple-test
    $ cd selenium-simple-test
    $ sudo pip install -U -r requirements.txt
    $ ./sst-run --test -x
    $ ./sst-run -d examples

* `Launchpad Project <https://launchpad.net/selenium-simple-test>`_

* `Browse the Source (Trunk) 
  <http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~canonical-isd-qa/selenium-simple-test/trunk/files>`_

* To manually setup dependencies, SST uses the following non-stdlib packages:
    
    * selenium
    * unittest2
    * junitxml
    * django (optional - needed for internal self-tests only)
    
    
------------------------
    Running the examples
------------------------

SST source code repository and package download contain some trivial example
scripts.

You can run them from your local sst directory like this::

    $ ./sst-run -d examples


--------------------------
    Running the self-tests
--------------------------

SST source code repository and package download contain a set of self-tests 
based on an included test Django project.

You can run the suite of self-tests (and the test Django server) from your local
branch like this::

    $ ./sst-run --test


-----------------
    Related links
-----------------

* `Selenium Project Home <http://selenium.googlecode.com>`_
* `Selenium WebDriver (from 'Architecture of Open Source Applications') 
  <http://www.aosabook.org/en/selenium.html>`_
* `Python Unittest <http://docs.python.org/library/unittest.html>`_
* `unittest2 <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/unittest2/>`_