fluncrunner 0.0

fluncrunner runs flunc tests (suites of twill scripts with variables) through the web.

The API
=======

There is a web API for running a flunc test.

Executing a test
----------------

To execute a test, POST to the test's execution URI.

To execute a test with global variable overrides, provide a www-form-urlencoded
set of key=value pairs in the request body.

For example::

POST /basic_test/ HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
username=lammy&password=testy&name_of_friend=bob

will execute a command like::

flunc -D username=lammy,password=testy,name_of_friend=bob basic_test

Inspecting a test
-----------------

To discover the available variables in a test, GET the test's inspection URI.

An HTML form will be returned, suitable for POSTing back to the server.

If available, default values (from the test's corresponding .conf) will be
detailed in the form fields' pre-filled values.

Configuring the server
======================

The fluncrunner server uses Paste Deploy for configuration.

A sample configuration, suitable for forking, can be found in

/docs/devel_config.ini

An app_factory is provided. It implements the test execution API
and requires one piece of configuration: a filesystem path that
points to a directory of flunc tests that may be run. This is
equivalent to flunc's -p option on the command line::

[app:flunc]
use = egg:fluncrunner
search_path = %(here)s/ftests/

You will want to configure this app to respond to POST requests.
A composite_factory `request_method` is provided which will
dispatch requests to applications based on request method::

[composite:main]
use = egg:fluncrunner#request_method
post = flunc

No automated implementation of the test inspection API is provided.
If you have a directory of static HTML forms that implement the API
for your flunc tests, you may want to configure a static file server
to respond to GET requests::

[composite:main]
use = egg:fluncrunner#request_method
post = flunc
get = static

[app:static]
use = egg:Paste#static
document_root = %(here)s/ftest_forms/

The Paste static file server infers Content-type from file extensions,
so if you want to serve flunc test forms that don't have *.html names
you may want to use the provided `force_html` filter_factory which
sets Content-type: text/html on all responses::

[app:static]
use = egg:Paste#static
document_root = %(here)s/ftest_forms/
filter-with = force_html

[filter:force_html]
use = egg:fluncrunner#force_html

If you are not serving fluncrunner from Paste, you can configure
this WSGI pipeline in code. You can find the needed WSGI factories
in `fluncrunner`'s `main.py`, `force_html.py` and `request_method.py`.

Generating flunc test forms
===========================

This section wants writing.

twill.js
========

There's http://bitbucket.org/ianb/twilljs/ which executes simple
twill scripts (no variables, no suites)

A similar API could transform flunc tests into twill scripts.
Somehow that feels more friendly to me than variables in twill.js.

A server would be responsible for interpolating variables provided
by the requesting client and serving a "standard" twill script.

Flunc suites could also be compiled down to twill scripts this way.