What is Solex ?

Solex is a free open source Web application testing tool built as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. It provides functions to record a client session, adjust it according to various parameters and replay it later typically in order to ensure non regression o

What is Solex ?

What is Solex ?

     

Solex is a free open source Web application testing tool built as a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. It provides functions to record a client session, adjust it according to various parameters and replay it later typically in order to ensure non regression of the application's behaviour (with stress testing capabilities being added at a later stage).

By recording, we mean that Solex acts as an HTTP proxy and records all HTTP requests and responses going through the wire between a Web client (eg. a Web browser) and a Web server. The task of replaying a scenario consists in sending the previously recorded and eventually customized HTTP requests to the server and asserting each response.

Solex 0.5.0 works with Eclipse Release 2.1.2, Build id: 200311030802 and Solex 0.5.3 works with Eclipse Release 3.1.1, Build id: M20050929-0840. You will also need a JRE 1.4.x or later.

Why another testing tool ?

Solex started as an internal project because we were unable to find an open source testing tool fully suitable to our needs and in particular capable of dynamically altering requests. Furthermore, the tool was expected to be fully integrated with our internal development environment based on the Eclipse platform.

For some web applications, a request depends on a previous server's response. To address such a requirement, Solex introduces the concept of extraction and replacement rules. An extraction rule tied to an HTTP message content will bind an extracted value with a variable. A replacement rule will replace any part of an HTTP message with a variable content.

Solex therefore provides an easy way to extract URL parameters, Header values or any part of a request or a response, bind their values with variables and then replace URL parameters, Header values or any part of a request with the variable content.

What can I do with Solex?

  1. Solex can record HTTP messages by acting as a Web proxy.
  2. Recorded sessions can be saved as XML and reopened later.
  3. HTTP requests and responses are fully displayed in order to inspect and customize their content, thanks to replacement rules.
  4. Solex allows the attachment of extraction or replacement rules to any HTTP message content, HTTP header or URL parameter.
  5. Recorded requests can be filtered to remove or disable unwanted resources, like .jpg, .gif.
  6. Solex allows the attachment of assertions to responses in order to validate a scenario during its playback.
  7. Solex can replay an HTTP session request by request or all requests at once.
  8. Playback results can be exported as XML with an optional XSL transformation.

What do I need to run Solex ?

  1. The primary requirement is to have Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org) version 2.1.2 (or above) installed on your computer.
  2. Download a Solex distribution from Sourceforge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/solex).
  3. Install the Solex plug-in: decompress the Solex archive in your Eclipse plugins folder and start Eclipse.
  4. Follow this tutorial.

To get more detail: http://solex.sourceforge.net/

     

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