Chapter 4. XML and Rational Functional Tester

Jeffrey R. Bocarsly

XML is important for Rational Functional Tester users for two reasons. First, data is now frequently formulated in an XML format, either for persistence in a file, a database, or to be sent (usually via HTTP) to another application. Verifying the data content of XMLs is often an important software quality task. So, parsing XMLs to capture data to compare it to baseline data is a common software testing need. Second, Rational Functional Tester employs the XML format to persist its own data. This chapter doesn’t discuss the details of Rational Functional Tester’s use of XML; rather, it covers all of the core XML-handling tasks that are needed to test XML data and to manipulate Rational Functional Tester XMLs. For discussions of how Rational Functional Tester uses XML, see Chapter 10, “Advanced Scripting with Rational Functional Tester TestObjects,” and Chapter 16, “Internationalized Testing with Rational Functional Tester.”