In between urgent bug fixes and planned sprint work I’ve been trying to find time to write an automated test suite with SoapUI to verify some of the things we can’t in unit tests. After writing a few SoapUI tests by copying the same SOAP request between test cases, but slightly modifying the content of one or two elements, I wondered whether it would be easier smarter to reuse a template SOAP request and somehow replace only the element/attribute content that differs between tests.

With a little bit of Groovy (specifically XmlSlurper) you can, and here’s how I did it.*

I created a template directory in the same location as my SoapUI project file, in which I store my template SOAP request(s). Load this project path using SoapUI’s GroovyUtil:

def projectDir = new com.eviware.soapui.support.GroovyUtils(context).getProjectPath()`

Then load the specific template you want to use:

def template = new java.io.File(projectDir + "/templates/generateAccount_renewalStub.xml")`

And create a new XmlSlurper instance reading the template:

def root = new XmlSlurper().parse(template).declareNamespace(...)`

For each test case, I create test properties in the same Groovy Bean format that XmlSlurper uses to access XML elements and attributes (e.g. request.inUser.username). The property values are what I want to replace the template content with. So you can use Eval.x to set the

testRunner.testCase.properties.each() { k, v ->
   // Use Eval.x to update the content of the element at ${k} with the value ${v}
}

Then you can use the content of the updated template request and transfer it as a property value to the next test step (such as a Test Request), the property accessed via ${Properties.testRequest}

* I’m still yet to get the Eval.x working to set properties with indexes, e.g. element[0], so my solution is not yet complete.

Your thoughts? I'd love to hear them. Please get in contact.