Request/Response Testing With Windows PowerShell

摘要

The most fundamental form of Web testing is HTTP request/response testing. This involves programmatically sending an HTTP request to the Web application, fetching the HTTP response, and examining the response for an expected value. When you need to perform request/response testing for ASP.NET applications, there are a number of approaches from which you can choose. You can write a C# or Visual Basic~(R) console application. You can write JavaScript or Perl scripts. If you're a glutton for punishment you can write a C/C++ program. And nowadays, you can use Windows PowerShell~(TM). I've used many of these techniques, and Windows PowerShell has become my preferred method for lightweight HTTP reauest/resDonse testing. I can simply write a small Windows PowerShell script that programmatically posts information to an ASP.NET application on a Web server. The script can then retrieve the HTTP response and examine it for an expected value to determine a pass/fail result. In this months column, I will show you how to use Windows PowerShell to perform request/response testing for an ASP.NET application. I'll assume you have at least some basic familiarity with ASP.NET and with Windows PowerShell. But even if these topics are new to you, you should still be able to follow this discussion without too much trouble.