messageCheckr

messageChecker verifies SOAP and Java Message Service (JMS) messages and position delimited messages.

Contents

• Compatibility
• Getting Started
• Usage
  • JMS messages
  • SOAP messages
  • Position delimited messages
• expectedMessage types for SOAP and JMS
• Operators
• Date Format (dateFormat)
• For Contributors

Compatibility

Works with Node.js v4.* and higher

Getting Started

npm install messagecheckr to install from the NPM registry.

Usage

var messageCheckr = require('messagecheckr');

JMS messages

Let's say we have the following JMS message

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
 <testRootElement xmlns="http://www.testing.com/integration/event">
   <elementOne>hello</elementOne>
   <anotherElement>
    <elementTwo>123</elementTwo>
   </anotherElement>
</testRootElement>

and we want to check the following:

• <testRootElement> has the attribute xmlns with the value http://www.testing.com/integration/event
• <elementOne> has the value hello
• <elementTwo> has an integer as a value

First create the expected message as follows:

var expectedMessage = [
    {path: 'testRootElement.testRootElement', attribute: 'xmlns', equals: 'http://www.testing.com/integration/event'},
    {path: 'testRootElement.elementOne', equals: 'hello'},
    {path: 'testRootElement.anotherElement.elementTwo', equals: '{integer}'},
];

To check the above message we need to make a call to messageCheckr as follows:

var result = messageCheckr({
  type: 'jms',
  actualMsg: actualMessage,
  expectedMsg: expectedMessage,
  expectedRootElement: 'testRootElement'
});
// actualMessage is a string of the message you want to check.

messageCheckr returns an object with the attribute allChecksPassed which will be true if all checks (those in expectedMessage) have passed otherwise false, thus allowing you to do an assertion like the following:

assert.equal(result.allChecksPassed, true);
// this is using chai.js, any assertion library can be used.

The object returned by messageCheckr also has an attribute called checks. In the case above the checks object will be empty because there are no failing checks. By default only failing checks are present. If you wish to see all checks provide the parameter verbose to messageCheckr(). If verbose was supplied (and set to true) checks would contain the following:

[
    {
        "pass":true,
        "target":"testRootElement",
        "actual":"testRootElement",
        "expected":"testRootElement",
        "description":"Check actual root element testRootElement is equal to expected root element testRootElement"
    },
    {
        "pass":true,
        "target":{"path":"testRootElement","attribute":"xmlns"},
        "actual":"http://www.testing.com/integration/event",
        "expected":"http://www.testing.com/integration/event",
        "description":"Check actual value http://www.testing.com/integration/event is equal to http://www.testing.com/integration/event"},
    {
        "pass":true,
        "target":{"path":"testRootElement.elementOne"},
        "actual":"hello",
        "expected":"hello",
        "description":"Check actual value hello is equal to hello"},
    {
        "pass":true,
        "target":{"path":"testRootElement.anotherElement.elementTwo"},
        "actual":"123",
        "expected":"{integer}",
        "description":"Check actual value 123 is an integer"
    }
]

In projects where I use messageCheckr I assert its result as follows, which will print out failing checks if there are any.

assert.equal(result.allChecksPassed, true, JSON.stringify(result));

SOAP messages

To check a SOAP message make a call to messageCheckr as follows:

var result = messageCheckr({
  type: 'soap',
  actualMsg: actualMessage,
  expectedMsg: expectedMessage
});

In the case of SOAP messages you don't need to specify the expectedRootElement, this is because it will automatically check the root element is SOAP-ENV:Envelope.

When creating an expectedMessage for checking a SOAP message you need to specify the path using uppercase SOAP-ENV regardless of whether the actual message is using soap-env, soapenv or soap - all of these get converted to SOAP-ENV. When creating messageCheckr for a Java project I noticed when the app was deployed to Apache Tomcat the character case of SOAP-ENV was the opposite to what it was when deployed to IBM WebSphere. As the retrieval of a path is case sensitive there was a need to convert all references to SOAP-ENV to one character case.

Example SOAP message

<soap-env:Envelope xmlns:soap-env="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  <soap-env:Header/>
  <soap-env:Body>
    <m:elementOne>hello</m:elementOne>
  </soap-env:Body>
</soap-env:Envelope>`

Let's say we want to check the following for the above message:

• <soap-env:Envelope> has the attribute xmlns:soap-env with the value http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/
• <m:elementOne> has the value hello

Create the expected message as follows:

var expectedMessage = [
    {path: 'SOAP-ENV:Envelope', attribute: 'xmlns:SOAP-ENV', equals: 'http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/'},
    {path: 'SOAP-ENV:Envelope.SOAP-ENV:Body.elementOne', equals: 'hello'}
];

Then make a call to messageCheckr. Notice in the case of specifying the path for elementOne we have excluded the 'm' namespace, messageCheckr removes all non-SOAP namespaces. The decision for this again was related to differences I noticed when testing messageCheckr on different environments.

Position delimited messages

To check these lovely position delimited messages you need to make a call to messageCheckr with type set to 'position':

var result = messageCheckr({
  type: 'position',
  actualMsg: actualMessage,
  expectedMsg: expectedMessage
});

Example position delimited message

start of messageNext part of message123456.10End of message

Let's say we want to check the following for the above message:

• Between position 0 and 15 the value is 'start of message'
• Between position 16 and 35 the value contains 'part'
• Between position 36 and 44 the value is 123456.10
• Between position 36 and 44 the value is a number with 2 decimal places
• Between position 45 and 58 the value matches the regex / of /

expectedMessage is defined as follows:

var expectedMessage = [
    {begin: 0,  end: 15, equals: 'start of message'},
    {begin: 16, end: 35, contains: 'part'},
    {begin: 36, end: 44, equals: 123456.10},
    {begin: 36, end: 44, equals: '{number(2)}'},
    {begin: 45, end: 58, equals: / of /}
];

expectedMessage types for SOAP and JMS

The following is a list of all possible types that you can use to construct an expectedMessage

Element by name

• {path: 'path.to.element', OPTIONS}

where OPTIONS can be one of the following:

- equals: operator - see section Operators
- equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- contains: 'string' or integer
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: operator - see section Operators
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- attribute: 'attribute name', contains: 'string' or integer
- pathShouldNotExist: true

Element by position

• {parentPath: 'path to parent of child element', element: 'name of element', elementPosition: integer > 0, OPTIONS}

where OPTIONS can be one of the following:

- equals: operator - see section Operators
- equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- contains: 'string' or integer
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: operator - see section Operators
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- attribute: 'attribute name', contains: 'string' or integer
- pathShouldNotExist: true

Repeating groups of elements (where position is known)

• {repeatingGroup: {path: 'path to element containing repeating group', repeater: 'repeating group name', number: integer - occurrence}, path: 'element name', OPTIONS}

where OPTIONS can be one of the following:

- equals: operator - see section Operators
- equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- contains: 'string' or integer
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: operator - see section Operators
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- attribute: 'attribute name', contains: 'string' or integer
- pathShouldNotExist: true

Repeating groups of elements (where position cannot be guaranteed)

• {repeatingGroupHasElements: { path: 'SOAP-ENV:ENVELOPE.SOAP-ENV:Body.thingContainingRepeatingGroups', repeater: 'RepeatingGroup',     elements: [       { path: 'fieldOneOfRepeatingGroup', OPTIONS },       { path: 'fieldTwoOfRepeatingGroup', OPTIONS }     ]   } }

where OPTIONS can be one of the following:

- equals: operator - see section Operators
- equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- contains: 'string' or integer
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: operator - see section Operators
- attribute: 'attribute name', equals: /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/, dateFormat: 'see section Date Format'
- attribute: 'attribute name', contains: 'string' or integer

See the wiki for a detailed example of each of the above expectedMessage types.

Operators

The following is a list of operators (i.e. assertions) which can be applied to a value retrieved from the path specified.

• 'string'
• integer
• '{integer}'
• '{number(d)}' where d is an integer to indicate the number of expected decimal places
• '{alpha}'
• '{uuid}'
• '{alphanumeric}'
• '{length(<d)}' where d is an integer
• '{length(>d)}' where d is an integer
• '{length(d)}' where d is an integer
• /regex/
• /regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/
• '{store(nameOfStore)}' and '{matches(nameOfStore)}'

'string'

Expect 'string' value to be present. Works with contains and equals.

Example:

equals: 'check this string equals the value at the path specified'
contains 'a string'

integer

Expected the integer value to be present. Works with contains and equals.

Example:

equals: 22
contains: 2

'{integer}'

Expect the value to be an integer. Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{integer}'

'{number(d)}' where d is an integer to indicate the number of expected decimal places

Expect the value to be number with d decimal places. Use with equals

Example:

equals: '{number(2)}'

'{alpha}'

Expect the value to be an alpha character or a sequence of alpha characters (A-Z a-z). Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{alpha}'
// e.g. 'a' or 'hello' would pass the assertion

'{uuid}'

Expect the value to be an universally unique identifier (uuid). Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{uuid}'

'{alphanumeric}'

Expect the value to be alphanumeric (A-Z a-z 0-9). Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{alphanumeric}'
// e.g. 'h3llo' would pass the assertion

'{length(<d)}' where d is an integer

Expect the value to have a length less than d. Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{length(<6)}'
// e.g. 'hello' would pass the assertion

'{length(>d)}' where d is an integer

Expect the value to have a length greater than d. Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{length(>5)}'
// e.g. 'hello' would pass the assertion

'{length(d)}' where d is an integer

Expect the value to have a length equal to d. Use with equals.

Example:

equals: '{length(5)}'
// e.g. 'hello' would pass the assertion

/regex/

Expect the value to match the regex pattern. Use with equals.

Example:

equals: /^[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}T[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}\.[0-9]{3}\+[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}/
// e.g. '2015-11-01T08:12:15.425+11:00' would pass the assertion

Remember to escape any special characters as this is just a JavaScript regex literal

/regex containing utc-timezone or local-timezone/

Expect the value to the match regex pattern after utc-timezone or local-timezone references have been replaced with the current date (assuming dateFormat has been included)

Example:

equals: /local-timezoneT\d\d:\d\d:\d\d\.\d\d\d\+\d\d:\d\d/, dateFormat: 'YYYY-MM-DD'
// YYYY-MM-DDT18:39:00.896+11:00 would pass the assertion if YYYY-MM-DD is the current local date

Remember to escape any special characters as this is just a JavaScript regex literal

'{store(nameOfStore)}' and '{matches(nameOfStore)}'

Use {store(nameOfStore)} to store the value specified by a path. Then use {matches(nameOfStore)} to check a different path value matches the value stored earlier. Use with equals.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<testRootElement xmlns="http://www.testing.com/integration/event">
   <elementOne>hello</elementOne>
   <elementTwo>hello</elementTwo>
</testRootElement>

var expectedMessage = [
    {path: 'testRootElement.elementOne', equals: '{store(whatever)}'}
    {path: 'testRootElement.elementTwo', equals: '{matches(whatever)}'}
];

// in the example above we are asserting the value of <elementTwo> matches the value of <elementOne>

Date Format (dateFormat)

Where a regex literal is used for equals and the attribute dateFormat is included then any reference to local-timezone or utc-timezone within the regex is replaced with the current local/utc date in the format specified in dateFormat. In the code Moment.js is used to format the current date as per the dateFormat. Refer to the following table for valid tokens:

Day of Month	Examples
D	1 2 ... 30 31
DD	01 02 ... 30 31
Do	1st 2nd ... 30th 31st

Month	Examples
M	1 2 ... 11 12
MM	01 to 12
Mo	1st 2nd ... 11th 12th, e.g January is the 1st month
MMM	Jan Feb ... Nov Dec
MMMM	January February ... November December

Year	Examples
YY	15
YYYY	2016

For Contributors

To run tests, node v4.0.0 or higher is required. I would recommend installing node version manager (nvm) if you haven't done so yet.

Clone the github repository:

git clone https://github.com/mrbenhowl/messageCheckr
cd messageCheckr
nvm use (optional - use if you use node version manager)
npm install

To run tests:

npm test

To run tests and see coverage:

npm run coverage