Software Research, Inc. recently announced the general availability of new Regular Expression DOM processing commands with its Patented eValid Website Test and Analysis Suite.

 

eValid now has the capability to search web pages through Regular Expressions, allowing tests to identify required page features in a general manner. The basic concept is to enable web application testers to find, act upon, and validate DOM objects and DOM object values within a web page without requiring specifics regarding the organization of the page.

 

"The new RegEx manipulation capability extends eValid's power in a big way. When you've got a test script that arrives at a page and you want to validate that a particular HTML construct is present, the only practical way to do that is through use of a regular expression. This process is somewhat like the well-known XPath capability in that you specify what you want to see present, and you get the answer back right away," stated Edward Miller, president of Software Research.

 

Regular use of the Regression Expression search capability will begin with eValid scripts that are recorded "from life" with one or more recorded validation steps included. The web tester generalizes the recorded validation steps, replacing them with a different set of "IndexFindElementEx" commands and including the DOM element names as well as the required values with that command. The new script then replays the same basic functional sequence but with broader validations and less dependence on page changes and updates.

 

"The power of this command comes from the fact that you can specify any number of name and/or value pairs to be searched on. Then, the regular expression engine applies to the value part – so you can set up a test for just a fragment of a larger, more complex, required feature," Miller continued. “The ability to do a Regular Expression match inside the DOM for page element matches based on regular expressions is a big advance for the eValid user, who can build test scripts that are highly resilient – not brittle at all – and can still do very detail-focused page content validations.”