Integrating with TestNG

TestNG is a testing framework inspired from JUnit and NUnit which introduces new functionalities that make it more powerful and easier to use. Just like JUnit or NUnit, with the right libraries, it can be used for unit testing or other test levels such as integration or even system tests with UI interactions. In this tutorial, we will explore how to integrate the test results generated by a TestNG automated test run within TestRail using the TestRail CLI. This will allow you to centralize your automated test results and take advantage of all the analytical and reporting capabilities TestRail provides.

Overview

Throughout this tutorial, we will be using a sample project to guide you through the process of setting up a TestNG automated tests project that is compatible with the TestRail CLI and uploading the generated test results.

After reading through this tutorial, you will be able to:

• Execute tests from a simple TestNG project
• Install the TestRail CLI
• Configure your TestRail instance
• Run the CLI
• See your test cases and test results on TestRail

Prerequisites

To be able to install and run a TestNG Java tests project, all you’ll need is to install the Java SE Development Kit. In the context of our sample project, you will also have to install Maven, which will be used for dependency management and running the project stages.

You will also need Python to install and run the TestRail CLI that will be used to import the test results to TestRail.

Installing the sample project

Let’s start by fetching the sample project code and installing the required dependencies.

1. Clone or download the sample project
2. Open your command prompt on the project root folder and execute the command below

$ mvn clean compile

Exploring the sample project

Use your favorite IDE to open the sample project and start digging into the test files. We’ve kept the automated tests code simple so that the focus of this tutorial remains on how to import the execution results. These tests consist of simple mathematical validations as you can see in the example below.

package com.idera.testrail.tests;

import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

class SumTests {

    @Test
    void AddTwoNumbers() {
        Assert.assertEquals(3, 1 + 2, "1 + 2 should equal 3");
    }

    @Test
    void AddTwoNumbersWithDecimals() {
        Assert.assertEquals(3, 1.5+1.4, "1.5+1.4 should equal 3");
    }
}

Executing the sample project

On the same command prompt, execute the following command to run the TestNG tests in the project and save the results in JUnit XML format.

$ mvn clean compile test

If the maven command was correctly executed, you should be able to see your test results on the reports folder. By opening the file index.html, you can see a nicely formatted HTML report such as the one below.

If the tests were correctly executed, you should be able to see your test results on the reports folder. There should be a file called TEST-TestSuite.xml, with results in JUnit XML format. This file will be parsed by the TestRail CLI to create the test run and upload your test results to TestRail on the next step.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<testsuite xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="https://maven.apache.org/surefire/maven-surefire-plugin/xsd/surefire-test-report.xsd" name="TestSuite" time="0.419" tests="4" errors="0" skipped="0" failures="1">
  <properties>
    <property name="sun.desktop" value="windows"/>
    <property name="awt.toolkit" value="sun.awt.windows.WToolkit"/>
    <property name="java.specification.version" value="11"/>
    <property name="sun.cpu.isalist" value="amd64"/>
    <property name="sun.jnu.encoding" value="Cp1252"/>
  </properties>
  <testcase name="MultiplyTwoNumbers" classname="com.idera.testrail.tests.MultiplicationTest" time="0.003"/>
  <testcase name="SubtractTwoNumbers" classname="com.idera.testrail.tests.SubtractionTests" time="0"/>
  <testcase name="AddTwoNumbers" classname="com.idera.testrail.tests.SumTests" time="0"/>
  <testcase name="AddTwoNumbersWithDecimals" classname="com.idera.testrail.tests.SumTests" time="0.004">
    <failure message="1.5+1.4 should equal 3 expected [2.9] but found [3.0]" type="java.lang.AssertionError">java.lang.AssertionError: 1.5+1.4 should equal 3 expected [2.9] but found [3.0]
      at com.idera.testrail.tests.SumTests.AddTwoNumbersWithDecimals(SumTests.java:15)
    </failure>
  </testcase>
</testsuite>

Importing results to TestRail

After the tests have been executed and the JUnit report files are generated, you can easily import your test results (and test cases!) to TestRail. This will bring visibility to your automated test runs and will enable you to look at the big picture of how you’re actually testing your app all within TestRail.

Installing the TestRail CLI

Given you already have Python installed on your machine, installing the TestRail CLI is as simple as executing the following command on your command line.

$ pip install trcli

Configuring TestRail

Secondly, you need to configure your TestRail instance according to the instructions below.

1. Enable the TestRail API by going to Admin > Site Settings, click on the API tab, and checking the Enable API option.
2. Create a Custom Field in order to map your automated test cases code to the actual TestRail cases. You can do so by going to Admin > Customizations and clicking Add Field. After you’ve reached the field creation screen, there are two requirements for this custom field:
   • The System Name must be automation_id
   • The Type must be Text

Sending results to TestRail

After you’re done installing the TestRail CLI and finished configuring your TestRail instance, you can upload your test results by simply using a one-liner such as the one below.

$ trcli -y \
>  -h https://INSERT-INSTANCE-NAME.testrail.io \
>  --project "My Project" \
>  --username INSERT-EMAIL \
>  --password INSERT-PASSWORD \
>  parse_junit \
>  --title "TestNG Automated Test Run" \
>  -f "./reports/TEST-TestSuite.xml"

Note that the file name after the -f option should match the path to your report file in case you change its default location. All others options should be according to your TestRail instance and project. You can check other command line options by checking the TestRail CLI README.md file on the project repository, the TRCLI documentation article, or the embedded CLI help through the commands below.

$ trcli --help
$ trcli parse_junit --help

Visualizing the results on TestRail

Now, if you go to the Test Cases page in your TestRail project, you’ll notice that the TestRail CLI automatically created the test cases that were on your test results report. Notice that it added a unique Automation ID by combining the classname and name attributes on each test on the JUnit report. This Automation ID is used to map the tests on your automation code base to the test cases on TestRail. This means that each time you run the TestRail CLI, it first attempts to match an existing test case on TestRail and only creates a new one in case there is no test case with that Automation ID.

On the Test Runs & Results page, we can see that a test run with the name TestNG Automated Test Run was created. By opening it we can dig further into the details of each automated test result and perform a high level analysis of why any test is failing since the error message provided by the test automation framework is also registered on the test result, as you can see on the image below.

What next?

Now that you have centralized your test results on TestRail, not only can you check the results of your automated test runs, along with the error messages for failed tests, but you can also aggregate both your manual and automated testing efforts on reports that show you the full test coverage surrounding your app and even track test automation progress. You can also report a bug directly from the automated test result to an issue tracker of your preference as you would do for your manual test results!

You can look into the TestRail’s Reports and Test Metrics video to learn about how you can leverage TestRail’s reporting capabilities.