dynamically create elements in a SoapUI request

I got this problem – took me like 8 hours to solve, so that qualifies it as a problem. In SoapUI I have a call that responds with something like <night ratePlanID="A" stayDate="B" availCodeID="C" regularPrice="D" totalPrice="E" />. There are multiple of these, the number can change depending on the inputs to this call. I need to create the same number of elements for my next call, and change the attributes around a bit to make it look something like: <hot:night ratePlanID="A" resDate="B" quotedPrice="E" />. Luckily Groovy abstracts away the need for counting things, and I naively thought that manipulating the XML would be a breeze too…

version 1.0

The first useful hints that I got were from the SoapUI tips & tricks. After that getting at the individual attributes is done with attributes.getNamedItem(). After that I just brute-forced my way through it.

// create groovyUtils and XmlHolder for response of my "find room" call
def grUtils = new com.eviware.soapui.support.GroovyUtils(context)
def holder = grUtils.getXmlHolder("find room#Response")

// place for my final result
def entireXmlFragment = new StringBuilder()

// get only the nodes that I am interested in, and iterate over all of them
holder.getDomNodes("//*:hotel/*:roomType/*:guestCount[1]/*:night").each {

	// create a new node one piece of string at a time
	def oneXmlFragment = new StringBuilder()
	oneXmlFragment << "<hot:night ratePlanID='"
	oneXmlFragment << it.attributes.getNamedItem("ratePlanID").getNodeValue()
	oneXmlFragment << "' resDate='"
	oneXmlFragment << it.attributes.getNamedItem("stayDate").getNodeValue()
	oneXmlFragment << "' quotedPrice='"
	oneXmlFragment << it.attributes.getNamedItem("totalPrice").getNodeValue()
	oneXmlFragment << "' />"
	oneXmlFragment << System.getProperty("line.separator")

	// add the new node to my final result
	entireXmlFragment << oneXmlFragment
}

// push the final result into a property
testRunner.testCase.setPropertyValue("entireXmlFragment", entireXmlFragment.toString())

Now in my next call I just insert ${#TestCase#entireXmlFragment} where I want this XML fragment to be placed. Works, but seems kinda neanderthal.

version 2.0

There has to be a way to manipulate my XmlFragments as XML objects, and there has to be a way to push them directly into the next call? The grUtils.getXmlHolder() led me to holder.getDomNodes(), which gives you back a org.w3c.dom.Node.

// create groovyUtils and XmlHolder for response of my "find room" call
def grUtils = new com.eviware.soapui.support.GroovyUtils(context)
def responseHolder = grUtils.getXmlHolder("find room#Response")

// create XmlHolder for request of my "bookHotelRes" call
def requestHolder = grUtils.getXmlHolder("bookHotelRes#Request")
// find the Node that I am interested in
def requestNode = requestHolder.getDomNode("//*:bookHotelResInput/*:room")
// the Document object is used to create new nodes
def requestDoc = requestNode.getOwnerDocument()

// get only the nodes that I am interested in, and iterate over all of them
responseHolder.getDomNodes("//*:hotel/*:roomType/*:guestCount[1]/*:night").each {

	// create a new Element in the Document
	def oneElement = requestDoc.createElementNS(requestNode.getNamespaceURI(), "night")
	// define all the attributes
	oneElement.setAttribute("ratePlanID", it.attributes.getNamedItem("ratePlanID").getNodeValue())
	oneElement.setAttribute("resDate", it.attributes.getNamedItem("stayDate").getNodeValue())
	oneElement.setAttribute("quotedPrice", it.attributes.getNamedItem("totalPrice").getNodeValue())
	// insert the Element
	requestNode.insertBefore(oneElement, requestNode.getFirstChild())
}

// write the Document out to the request
requestHolder.updateProperty(true)

The above will write out the next Element as the first child. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the above will write it out into your request – if you run your test twice in a row, you will end up with both results (old and new) in your request. This is undesirable, but easy to take care of.

// cleanup from a "previous" run
requestHolder.getDomNodes("//*:bookHotelResInput/*:room/*:night").each {
	requestNode.removeChild(it)
}

HTH 🙂