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Re: Automated TESTING scripts

for

From: Holly Marie
Date: Nov 19, 2002 4:33AM


----- Original Message -----
From: "MacKay, Graham (JUS)"

| Hi,
|
| One of our developers is about to sit down to try and compile a PERL
script
| that will search a directory (and all subdirectories) and perform a
number
| of tests on each file and then return a report of the filename, line
number
| and error type that was found. We plan to try and include as many
automated
| testing procedures in this program as possible.
|
| Just wondering if anyone out there has either defined tests that could
be
| automated (this would be perhaps a document of some sort) or actually
| created a program/script that would check through pages for mistakes.
|
| I want something more specific than bobby. Tests would include things
| like...
|
| * Any use of <FONT * > (where * is a wildcard) in any page
| * Make sure each document starts with <!DOCTYPE *>
| * List all files that contain <MARQUEE*>

Well a good place to start might be the W3C which maintains the code and
also has available for download the source code for its validation.

I imagine with a bit of programming background and knowledge of perl and
cgi, someone could retrofit this validation tool into something that can
be run and worked for Intranet testing.

It might be simple enough to run it in the strict cases for XHTML or
even HTML and each would provide the feedback needed.

Source code, past and present and information available at:
http://validator.w3.org/source/

[quoted from the page]
The most interesting files are currently a CGI script called "check"
that does pretty much everything, and possibly also the httpd.conf.
(select the topmost revision numbers on these pages to see the most
recent revision of each file.)
If you want a copy of all the files that make up the service, you can
grab a tar ball (~2.0M, updated hourly.)
[end quoted material]
The downloads for CGI *Check* and more info on that part is located,
here:
http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/validator/httpd/cgi-bin/check

Bobby.
Years ago, we were able to download a copy of Bobby testing and
evaluation. I do not know whether or not that is available for trade and
distribution, or if there were any limitations on the free and open
nature of it, and I would have to look at the readme and documentation.
This again was a previous version of Bobby and I would have to look. But
this may be another avenue for you and your developer. The copyright and
ownership on the current set of code may be just that and the previous
version may be open? Again this would need to be checked into. And I
have no idea what type of programming was used in that download version.

holly

Now, if you were thinking of using either and marketing a tool with
ownership and copyright. I do not think that is possible using these
source files[you would need to check this with a copyright attorney who
knows about these areas]



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