Testing with Ant

You can use Ant to run performance and compound tests from the command line. Starting from V2.0 of the Ant plugin, you can run multiple tests simultaneously. V5.0 of the Ant plugin is supported in IBM® Rational® Performance Tester V10.0.2.

Before you begin

You must have completed the following tasks:

  • Installed Installation Manager.

  • Installed Rational® Performance Tester.

  • Verified that you have test assets residing within Rational® Performance Tester.

  • Downloaded the Rational® Performance Tester Ant plugin from the IBM WebSphere, Liberty & DevOps Community portal on to the computer where you install the product.

    For more information about specific versions of plugin, see Integration plugin compatibility matrix.

  • Added Ant to the PATH environment variable.

About this task

To run performance tests on Mac OS, you must add an environment variable that points to the installation directory of Rational® Performance Tester.

For example, export TEST_WORKBENCH_HOME=/opt/IBM/SDP.

Note: For Windows and Linux®, the environment variable is set when you install the product.

Procedure

  1. Extract the following files from the downloaded plugin:
    • RPT-Ant-x.0.jar

      Where, x is the version number of the Ant plugin.

    • ExecutePerformanceTest.xml
    • README.txt
  2. Open the ExecutePerformanceTest.xml file and provide required parameter values.
    For example,

    <pt name="test1" workspace="C:\workspace" projectname="TestProject" suite="Tests/test1.testsuite" results="Results/test1_on_anttask" />

    Note: You can add an additional <pt> task and provide the details for each test to run multiple tests simultaneously.

    The following table explains each field.

    FieldDescription
    - name Required. The name of the test for the particular test product.
    - workspace Required. The complete path to the Eclipse workspace.
    - projectname Required. The path, including the file name of the project relative to the workspace.
    - suite Required. The path, including the file name of the test to run relative to the project. A test can be a performance schedule or a compound test.
    - varfile Optional. The complete path to the XML file that contains the variable name and value pairs.
    - configfile Optional. The complete path to a file that contains the parameters for a test or schedule run.
    - results Optional. The name of the results file. The default result file is the test or schedule name with a time stamp appended.
    - overwrite Optional. Determines whether a result file with the same name is overwritten. The default value is false, which means the result file cannot be overwritten and a new result file is created.
    - quiet Optional. Turns off any message output from the launcher and returns to the command shell when the run or the attempt is complete.
    - vmargs Optional. Java virtual machine arguments to pass in.
    - swapdatasets Optional. For a test or schedule, the default value is the dataset specified in the test editor or schedule editor. Overrides the default dataset value to run if required.
    Note: You must use the swapdatasets option to replace dataset values during a test or schedule run. You must ensure that both original and new datasets are in the same workspace and have the same column names. You must also include the path to the dataset. For example: /project_name/ds_path/ds_filename.csv:/project_name/ds_path/new_ds_filename.csv. You can swap multiple datasets that are saved in a different project by adding multiple paths to the dataset separated by a semicolon. For example: /project_name1/ds_path/ds_filename.csv:/project_name1/ds_path/new_ds_filename.csv;/project_name2/ds_path/ds_filename.csv:/project_name2/ds_path/new_ds_filename.csv
    -overridermlabels Optional. For a schedule (Rate schedule or VU schedule), use -overridermlabels to perform any of the following actions:
    • To enable the Resource Monitoring from Service option for a performance schedule if the Resource Monitoring from Service option is not enabled from the schedule editor in Rational® Performance Tester.
    • To ignore Resource Monitoring sources that were set in the performance schedule and to change for a label matching mode.
    • To replace an existing set of Resource Monitoring labels that were set in the performance schedule and run the schedule with a new set of Resource Monitoring labels.
    Note: You can add multiple Resource Monitoring labels separated by a comma.
    Important: You must add the Resource Monitoring labels to the Resource Monitoring sources on the Resource Monitoring page in your IBM® Rational® Test Automation Server project.
    - exportstats Optional. The complete path to a directory that can be used to store exported statistical report data.
    - exportstatreportlist Optional. A comma-separated list of absolute paths to custom report format files (.view files) to use when exporting statistical report data with the -exportstats option.
    - exportstatshtml Optional. The complete path to a directory that can be used to export web analytic results. The results are exported in the specified directory. Analyze the results on a web browser without using the test workbench.
    - usercomments Optional. Add text within the double quotation mark to display it in the User Comments row of the report.
    - users Optional. For a schedule, the default value is the number of users specified in the schedule editor. For a test, the default value is one user. Overrides the default number of users, if required.
    -imsharedloc Optional. The complete path to IBMIMShared location, if it is not at the default location.
  3. Open a command prompt and navigate to the directory where you downloaded the Ant plugin.
  4. Enter ant -f ExecutePerformanceTest.xml to run the test.

Results

You have run the test by using the Ant plugin.

What to do next

You can view that the Ant execution output is logged into the logfile.txt file, and a test log is created in a temp directory called RPT-Ant-x.0.

If you have configured the URL of Rational Test Automation Server in the preferences (Window > Preferences > Test > Rational Test Automation Server) of Rational® Performance Tester and set Publish result after execution as Always, then the Reports information section on the Log file displays the names of the report along with its corresponding URLs.