The ACT Test Object Model

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Building your own tests from scratch would be a lot of work, for two simple reasons: the ACT test development environment does not support IDE niceties such as IntelliSense, which we all know and love, and Web tests can get really complicated. The best way to develop your own tests is to record your test scripts first and then customize them.

Of course, to do all of that, you need to become familiar with the ACT Test Object Model, which is depicted in Figure B-8. This isn't really all that difficult. The classes and relationships are well designed ”you just need some time to get familiar with them. Believe me, the time spent on learning this will pay for itself in the end.

Figure B-8. The ACT Test Object Model.

Tables B-1 through B-4 provide a quick reference to the ACT Test Object Model objects shown in Figure B-8.

Table B-1. Methods and Property of the Test Object

Method	Description
CreateConnection	Creates a new connection to the server.
CreateRequest	Creates a new Request object that can be sent using the Connection.Send method.
GetCurrentUser	Gets the current user for the test.
GetGlobalIndex	Gets the value of a global index variable that is stored between iterations of the test.
GetGlobalVariable	Gets a previously assigned global variable or creates a new one if necessary.
GetNextUser	Gets the next user object for the test and makes it the active account.
IncrementGlobalIndex	Increments or decrements the value of a global index variable.
SendRequest	Sends a URL request to the server and returns the server response.
SetGlobalIndex	Sets the value of a global index variable that is stored between iterations of the test.
SetGlobalVariable	Sets a global variable that is stored between iterations of the test.
Sleep	Pauses the test for the specified number of milliseconds .
StopTest	Stops the current test.
Trace	Adds an entry to the ACTTrace.log file.
Property	Description
TraceLevel	Gets or sets the amount of detail stored in the ACTTrace.log file.

Table B-2. Properties of the Request Object

Property	Description
Body	Gets or sets the HTTP request body.
CodePage	Gets or sets the code page for the request body.
EncodeBody	Specifies whether ACT automatically URL-encodes the request body. The default value is True .
EncodeQueryAsUTF8	Specifies whether ACT automatically UTF-8-encodes the request's query string. The default value is False .
Headers	Gets the HTTP Headers collection object.
HTTPVersion	Gets or sets the HTTP version.
Path	Gets or sets the HTTP path.
ResponseBufferSize	Gets or sets the size of the buffer used to store the response body.
Verb	Gets or sets the HTTP method verb.

Table B-3. Properties and Methods of the Connection object

Property	Description
IsOpen	Checks whether the connection is open .
Port	Gets the port number used by the connection.
RedirectDepth	Gets or sets the number of HTTP header redirections that are ­followed.
Server	Gets the host name or IP address of the server the client is ­connected to.
UseSSL	Checks whether the HTTP connection between the client and the server is using the SSL protocol (that is, whether the protocol is HTTPS).
Method	Description
Close	Closes the connection if it is open. Does not return an error if the connection is already closed.
Send	Sends an HTTP request to the server.

Table B-4. Properties of the Response Object

Property	Description
Body	Gets the body of the HTTP response. Returns only the portion of the body stored in the response buffer.
BytesRecv	Gets the number of bytes the client received in the response.
BytesSent	Gets the number of bytes sent in the HTTP request.
CodePage	Gets or sets the code page used for setting the body of the HTTP response.
ContentLength	Gets the size, in bytes, of the response body.
Headers	Gets a collection of headers in the response.
HeaderSize	Gets the combined size, in bytes, of all the response headers.
HTTPVersion	Gets the HTTP version used by the server for this response.
Path	Gets the path that was requested .
Port	Gets the server port used for the request.
ResultCode	Gets the server's response status code.
Server	Gets the name of the server that sent the response.
TTFB	Gets the number of milliseconds that elapsed before the first byte of the response was received.
TTLB	Gets the number of milliseconds that elapsed before the last byte of the response was received.
UseSSL	Checks whether the server and client used an SSL connection for the request and response.

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