Problem:

How do I data-drive my SilkPerformer test in SilkCentral Test Manager?

Resolution:

Within SilkPerformer we have Project attributes. Project attributes are name-value pairs with some additional information, which can be defined for a project. Each virtual user is initialized at runtime with these attributes. A useful scenario is to parameterize the BDL scripts on the project level. Project attributes can be defined in the SilkPerformer Workbench "Project / Project Attributes..." menu. An attribute consists of a name, a type, a value and a default value. The type specifies the way how the value and the default value of an attribute should be interpreted.

Possible attribute types are:

• string
• numeric
• float
• boolean

Within our SilkPerformer scripts we use the “AttributeGet*” methods to retrieve a string from a specified attribute of the user.

To data-drive this script from Test Manager you need to define project attributes in SilkPerformer named like the columns of the data source you created. Taking the example above we would need to ensure that our data-source had a column heading of “FirstName”.

This will allow each data row of your data source to be represented by a test definition of its own. Each line of the data source will be inputted as the project attribute “FirstName” in turn.