Disabling portions of a test

When you disable portions of a test, you can still see the disabled portion, but it is not executed during a run. You can also disable portions of a schedule by using the following procedure.

About this task

To disable secondary HTTP requests, see Disabling and enabling secondary HTTP requests.

Procedure

To disable an element:
  1. In the Test Navigator, browse to the test, and double-click it.
    The test opens.
  2. Right-click the element that you want to disable, and select Disable.
    The element and the dependent child elements, which are disabled automatically, are shaded and preceded by two forward slashes (//) to remind you that they are disabled.
    Note: To change the color or symbol that represents disabled elements, click Windows > Preferences > Test > Test Editor, and then click the Colors and Fonts tab.

    Although a disabled test element does not run, you can still work with it. For example, you can insert a test into a disabled user group for later use.

  3. To enable a disabled element, right-click it, and select Enable. Select Enable All to enable all disabled elements.

Example

Disabling an element affects other elements in the following ways:
Disabled element Result
User group (percentage) The percentages in the remaining user groups are recalculated. When you enable the user group again, remember to return all of the affected user groups to their original percentage.
User group (absolute) The number of users in the remaining groups might not match the total number of users specified in the schedule. If so, new virtual users are redistributed among the remaining user groups so that the numbers will match. When you enable the user group again, remember to return all of the affected user groups to their original totals.
Request or step that contains a data correlation reference Substitution in the remaining actions that depend on this request does not work.
Request or step that contains a data correlation substituter Substitution does not occur because the entire action is omitted. The substituter that uses the disabled data source is also disabled. To re-enable the substituter, select an enabled data source for substitution.
HTTP request that contains a server connection No effect. The connection is automatically created in the next request.
Portion of custom code Custom code with disabled arguments is flagged. If the disabling causes an unexpected number of arguments passed to custom code elements, you receive an error at runtime. To fix this, modify the custom code to check the number of arguments.
IF data_source construct An IF construct is marked as invalid if it contains a disabled data source.
Test element and child are disabled If you disable a child element and then disable its parent (for example, a request and then a page), the disabled child element will have two prefixes: one created manually and one inherited. In the following example, the first request has inherited the disabled state. The second request has been manually disabled and has also inherited the disabled state:
//disabled page
	//request
	////disabled request
Do one of the following to re-enable the second request:
  • Re-enable the request, and then re-enable the page.
  • Right-click the page and select Enable All.
A data source or a range of text that will be replaced The Data table displays this text in gray.