RE: [xml-dev] Testing

["Michael Kay" <michael.h.kay@ntlworld.com>]

The first advice I give on this is: when you say that as the document
recipient, you want to ensure that the incoming documents are "valid", you
aren't using the word "valid" in the XML sense. An XML document is valid if
it conforms to the DTD that the originator says it conforms to. That's not
what you're interested in, you're interested in whether it meets the
constraints imposed by your application. Your first challenge is to define
exactly what you want "valid" to mean in your context. You can then set
about deciding how to test for that validity: some combination of validation
against a DTD, a Schema, or a custom application. It depends how complex the
rules are, and whether validation is self-contained or contextual ("the
document must identify an employee whose personnel number is already in the
database"). I've seen some people use XSLT stylesheets for validation, and
the Schematron engine gives you a good way of doing this.

I think it's also a good idea to build in a concept of trust. You don't need
to validate documents from originators whom you can trust to get it right.

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@ntlworld.com
work: Michael.Kay@softwareag.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Tucker [mailto:ptucker@merit-at.com]
> Sent: 06 March 2002 16:40
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: [xml-dev] Testing
>
>
> This is my first venture into the XML world so please excuse
> my ignorance. I am testing an application that has an XML
> interface to allow B2B messaging. At the moment this is very
> much a learning phase for me (in at the deep end as usual!)
> and I am trying to gather as much info as possible.
>
> When it comes to testing for XML the main focus seems to be
> on testing that documents are valid. From my perspective I am
> interested in this but also how my application is going to
> deal with the XML it receives (whether it be valid or
> invalid). This means that I am going to have to send
> different documents (both invalid and valid) with different
> sets of data and check the response document and data is OK
> and that what I expect to happen in the application itself
> actually happens.
>
> We have started prototyping an application that will allow us
> to do this type of testing but I wanted to find out what
> other people do for this - I guess system -  testing and if
> there are already any tools that I've missed!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul
>
> Paul Tucker
> Merit AT Ltd
> Professional Test Automation
> Tel: 01506 41 43 49
> Mob: 0771 511 0244
> www.merit-at.com
>
>
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