5.1 Introduction
HttpUnit,
available from
http://www.httpunit.org, is an
open source Java library for programmatically interacting with HTTP
servers. With HttpUnit, your Java programs can access servers
directly, without the need for a browser. HttpUnit provides an API
for parsing HTML, submitting forms, following hyperlinks, setting
cookies, and performing many other tasks normally associated with web
browsers. It also includes a class library for direct manipulation of
servlets, sometimes bypassing the need to start a web server.
Despite its name, HttpUnit is not a testing
tool. Instead, it provides an API for
interacting with HTML and HTTP servers. You normally think of
HttpUnit as a testing tool, however, because you use HttpUnit in
conjunction with JUnit to write tests. JUnit defines the testing
framework and your testXXX( ) methods use the
HttpUnit API to access and test web pages.
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Tests written with HttpUnit are usually more like
"integration" tests than
"unit" tests. A unit test normally
tests a single method or class in isolation, while HttpUnit tests
invoke HTTP servers across a network connection.
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Using HttpUnit in combination with JUnit is the focus of the recipes
in this chapter. The recipes are presented in order as portions of a
simple web application developed using a test-first approach. If the
web application were complete, it would allow users to subscribe and
unsubscribe from a newsletter. It would also allow administrators to
view the complete list of newsletter subscribers, but only after
providing a username and password.
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