[ANN] Puffin Web Testing Framework, Version 0.8.9 Release

A. Keyton Weissinger keyton@weissinger.org
Thu, 9 May 2002 00:30:46 -0400


** PUFFIN 0.8.9 RELEASE! **

It's my distinct pleasure to announce the release of the 0.8.9 release
of the Puffin web application testing framework!

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Highlights:
- HEADER EXTRACTION BUGFIXES
- SEVERAL USER GUIDE UPDATES
- DUPLICATE TEST ACTION CONFIG CHECK
- ABILITY TO INCLUDE TEST ACTION INCLUDE FILES IN PUFFIN CONFIG
- ADDITION OF APPCONTEXTALIAS TESTACTION ATTRIB FOR SIMPLER CONFIG
- LIST PROCESSORS NOW ALLOW TOKEN EXPRESSIONS
- OTHER ASSORTED BUGFIXES. 

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Details:
- (HEADER EXTRACTION BUGFIXES) There were plenty of problems in the
header extraction output processor that user BNorman helped me to see.
These are all fixed now.

- (SEVERAL USER GUIDE UPDATES) A few of the updates from 0.8.8 did
not get incorporated into the user guide updates. These are all there
now.

- (DUPLICATE TEST ACTION CONFIG CHECK) In previous versions, if you
configured the same test action multiple times in the same puffin
config file, an error occurred. This is checked for now. If you have
duplicates you are given a warning that only the first will work and
the rest are ignored.

- (ABILITY TO INCLUDE TEST ACTION INCLUDE FILES IN PUFFIN CONFIG) 
You can now include test action include files in your puffin config
file. This allows multiple people to work on different sets of test
actions all at the same time. Just include them all into one puffin
config file. This EXCELLENT feature was suggested by user BNorman. 

- (ADDITION OF APPCONTEXTALIAS TESTACTION ATTRIB FOR SIMPLER 
CONFIG) The <testActions> element in the main puffin config file
now allows for a "appContextAlias" attribute that allows you to name
your web app. Puffin will take this value and add it to your path
automatically. For example, if your CGI Application alias is
"/puffindemoapp/" then you could do:
   <testActions appContextAlias="puffindemoapp">
And all <path> values for all test actions will have /puffindemoapp
added to the beginning. So for the following test action
   <testAction name="login">
      <path>/login.cgi</path>
      .
      .
      .
Puffin will actually use the path:
   /puffindemoapp/login.cgi
when executing this test action.
 

- (LIST PROCESSORS NOW ALLOW TOKEN EXPRESSIONS) You can now use
token expressions as listItems for LIST input processors (you were
already able to do this for LIST-type output processors).

- (ASSORTED BUGFIXES) As always, Ernie or I fixed a few small bugs 
and refactored in many a place, including the fixShebang.pl script 
in the demo/iteration1 folder.

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Puffin New Features Survey
I'm planning the next big release (0.9) and would like your help. 

What would you like to see added to puffin?
a) A GUI front end to make config, test plan construction and test
plan execution simpler and more intuitive.
b) A multithreaded execution controller to get many puffin instances 
hammering a web application at the same time. (This would be called
"flock" as in a "flock of puffins." Sorry.)
c) More/different/better documentation.
d) More core input/output processors.
e) Something else?

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What is Puffin?
Puffin allows you to test any web application or service. Once 
customized to your web application, you can use Puffin to unit test 
individual web pages, system test your entire web application, or load
test your entire site.

Have a complex web application that needs to be rigorously tested? 
Puffin is the answer!

Check out Puffin TODAY at http://puffin.sourceforge.net

Keyton Weissinger
keyton@weissinger.org
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