What is a WSDL Regression test

LegacyForum

Hi,

Can any body tell me what exactly is regression control, In WSDL tests we have 4th test is WSDL Regression , I got to know that it can detect the changes in the WSDL, But practicall I did not understand , please attach if any files are there so that it could be easy for understanding ..

Thanks .

LegacyForum

A regression control for a WSDL test is essentially the same as a regression control anywhere. The general principle is that you are getting a response from a client (in this case a messaging client), and you have a chained Diff control. The first time you run the test the diff control gets populated with a baseline, which is essentially freezing your WSDL. Every time the test runs, the diff control checks to see if there is a deviation from the baseline, and if there is the test fails (ie it finds the differences between the previous WSDL from which the baseline was established and the WSDL from the latest run). The deviation could be one of 2 things:

1) The developers have purposefully changed the content of the WSDL, and therefore need to update the regression controls to reflect the purposeful change.

2) There was a code change which caused an unexpected change in the content of the WSDL

Once you get a large suite of regression tests, you want to make sure that you are running them often on something like a nightly build (if that's applicable to you), that way you are alerted to unexpected changes of functionality of your code immediately, which can than be quickly assigned to the developer responsible, which can save a lot of headache and time compared to finding problems much later in the SDLC. Another very common use of regression controls is when web service operations are being exercised with values, you want to ensure that the responses that you get today (which are presumably correct) are the same as the responses that you get tomorrow, and you want to be alerted immediately if not.