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Importing test catalogs?

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2012-12-18
2013-01-05
  • Michael Schnick

    Michael Schnick - 2012-12-18

    Hi,

    I'm in the process of choosing a test case management tool.
    We're using trac as our bug tracking system and need something that integrates with trac easily.

    So, the choice was to try out the TestManager plugin.

    However, I'd like to bulk import our test cases.

    Currently, I'm stuck. I'd like to create subcatalogs according to the components in trac.
    Then, I'd like to reference store the test cases in the appropriate catalogue - automatically.

    Therefore, I came up with the following text file format, which will only yield testcases named "testcatalog" though:

    Type;ID;Parent ID;Title;Description;Parent_id;Description;Title
    testcatalog;60;57;   yadda;"
    "
    testcatalog;61;57;   this;"
    "
    testcatalog;62;57;  that;"
    "
    testcatalog;63;57;  foo;"
    "
    testcatalog;64;57;   bar;"
    "
    testcatalog;65;57;   foobar;"
    "

    I'd expect the subcatalogs to be called
    * yadda
    * this
    * that
    * foo
    * bar
    * foobar

    I sticked to the text format exported by TestManager.

    Where did I go wrong?
    Or can I only import catalogs, but no test cases?

    Best regards

    Michael Schnick
    Quality Assurance, Digivod

     
  • Roberto Longobardi

    Hi Michael,
    the test catalog import function is a bit limited at the time, in that you can only import a set of test cases inside a single catalog.

    The CSV file to import from must start with the two required columns:
    title;description

    every subsequent column will define custom properties for the test case type of objects. Ususally this is not necessary.

    The test cases import function is thought to easily populate your test catalogs with initial data, perhaps coming from some test design work you did outside the tool, it is not thought to work together with the test catalog export function, for example to migrate data between two environments.

    This may seem crazy, but the reason is simply that I first developed the import function as a facility to easy starting a test management project, and only much later I developed the export function as a request from some users. I did the second one more functional, but still didn't have time to enhance the import function for letting transfer data from one environment to another.

    I've been asked to do this very recently, so I guess I'll try to find some time to work on it.

    For now, if you only need to populate your catalogs with initial data, stick to importing the test cases for one catalog at a time, by first creating the catalog in Trac and then importing the text file containing the test cases. In the file, only specifies the two required columns, title and description.

    Hope this helps. Let me know if you find this information useful and if I can help you with your importing work.

    Stay tuned for enhancements in this space.

    Ciao,
    Roberto

     
  • Michael Schnick

    Michael Schnick - 2013-01-04

    Hi Roberto,

    Thank you, this worked out indeed.

    However, as a German native speaker, I'm running into issues with our dreaded umlauts, like "ä" and "ö" and so forth.
    Importing testcases with these characters will fail due to Genshii problems.

    Is there a way to do a dry test run of the import, first, and then if everything works out ok, import all test cases?

    Thanks for your help - keep up the good work!

    Best regards
    Michael
    Quality Assurance, Digivod

     
  • Roberto Longobardi

    Hi Michael,
    there was a problem in handling non ASCII characters.

    Please find a patched "testman4trac/trunk/testmanager/api.py" that will fix the error.

    I've opened a ticket for this: https://trac-hacks.org/ticket/10760

    Unfortunately there's no way to do a dry run of the import for the moment.

    Ciao,
    Roberto

     
  • Roberto Longobardi

    Ah, and you have to save your CSV file in "UTF-8" encoding before importing it.

    Many text editors can do it, including Notepad++ on windows and every one on Linux.

    Ciao,
    Roberto

     

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