In the first part of this post series on the topic “Advanced Rule Testing”, I’ve explained some theory of advanced rule testing. At the end, I promised to present some more advantages. Here they come: Some testing techniques that are only possible, if you use advanced rule testing with Visual Rules.

1. Use functions to analyze your test results

With a conventional rule test, it is not possible to apply functions to output variables in order to check for an expected value. A good example is the count() function. In some cases, it is important, that, based on the given inputs, a list should be returned empty or with a specific number of elements. We had that in numerous projects using our Dynamic Application Framework where we dynamically build up and extend tables by modifying lists.

Just envoke the count() function in the test rule. Take the result and write it into an output variable of type Integer of the test rule and you get a value that you can compare your expected results to. Another function often used in test rules is the round() function. Based on the environment and the test data, slight differences may be accepted in the tests. Read more…