In this section:
Overview
Simple tabular data may be more appropriate than complex hierarchical data structures for certain testing activities. You can create simple data sets in Continuous Testing Platform for use in tests executed in the desktop, command line, or web interface. You can either create an empty data set and populate it manually, or create a data set by importing a file containing the data.
Important Concept and Terminology
See About the Data Repository for definitions of terms used in this section.
Main Toolbar
The main application toolbar contains functionality associated with the data repository, but additional functionality may appear in the toolbar depending on the current view.
You can perform the following actions in the main toolbar.
Click Export to export the repository. This action creates a copy of the data repository that you can download from the main page of the Data tab. See Creating and Managing Repositories.
- Click Lock to prevent other users from making changesto the repository. See Locking and Unlocking Repositories in CTP.
- Click Refresh to load any changes may have occurred on a connected application.
- Click Data Set to add a new data set to the repository. See Manually Creating a Data Set.
- Click Delete to delete the selected repository. See Creating and Managing Repositories.
Data Repository View
Click on a repository in the Data tab to open the data repository view.
You can perform the following actions in the data repository view.
Manually Create a Data Set
- In the Data tab, choose a repository from the server menu and click the add data set button in the main toolbar.
- Specify names for the data set and record type. By default, the name of the data set is used for the record type name, but you can click in the Record Type Name field and specify a different value if your test scenarios use a specific naming convention.
- Choose the Empty option and click Create.
The data set will be added to the repository page. See Adding and Modifying Data for next steps.
Download Data Sets and Record Types
You can download the data set or record type as a JSON or CSV file.
- Choose Download from the ellipses menu and specify the file format.
- Specify an encoding option (default is UTF-8) and click Download.
Delete Data Sets and Record Types
Choose Delete from the ellipses menu and confirm that you want to remove the data set or record type when prompted. If the data set contains a hierarchy of record types that are not referenced by another data set, you can enable the Delete orphaned record types option to ensure that the data set is completely removed. This option does not apply to record types.
Open the Data Record View
Click on a data set in the Data Sets column to open the Data Record View.
Data Record View
The data record view is the interface for modifying data. Click on a data set from the data repository view to access records.
You can perform the following actions.
Use the Data Sets Toolbar
- Click the refresh button to load any changes to the data.
- You can download the data as a JSON or CSV file
- Click the download icon and choose a format from the drop-down menu.
- Choose an encoding option (default is UTF-8) and specify separator and quotation mark characters.
- Click Download to proceed.
- Click the trash icon and confirm that you want to delete the data set when prompted. If the data set contains record types that do not reference or are not referenced by another component, you can enable the Delete orphaned record types option to ensure that the data set is completely removed.
Add and Modify Data
Click on the ellipsis menu in the data set header to add key columns, value columns, and to add first and last rows.
New value columns are always added to the end of the table.
New key columns are added to the beginning of the table (immediately to the right of the Row # column) in alphabetical order according the following precedence:
- Columns starting with a hyphen (-)
- Upper case
- Lower case
About Key and Value Column Names
Column names cannot:
- contain white spaces
- contain non-alphanumeric characters
- start with a digit
- use underscores as the first or last character
If the file contains any of these characters, they will be replaced by underscores when imported into a data set.
Click the row actions menu to add an inline row, duplicate the data row, or delete the row.
Duplicated and newly-added rows are added below the actioned row and are highlighted.
Click on the edit icon to enable editing values for the row. When in edit mode, the edit icon changes to the save button and the row actions menu icon changes to the cancel button.
Change the value of the Row # field to change the order when the data is used in SOAtest.
Creating a Data Set on Import
Only CSV and CSV-formatted files are currently supported for import.
- In the Data tab, choose a repository from the server menu and click the add data set button.
- Specify a name for the data set and a name for the record type name (optional).
- Choose the From CSV File option and click Next.
- Choose the file containing the data when prompted. The uploader detects column headers. By default, the encoding is set to UTF-8. The separator and quote characters are set also to common characters by default. If your file has a different encoding or uses different separator and quotation mark characters, change them in the drop-down menu.
(Optional) Configure how the data is imported. Click in a field in the File options and choose from the available settings. Enable the Trim spaces option to remove extraneous spaces from the data. You can designate a field as a key, value, or both. Keys enable message responders to find the correct row of data to construct responses.
- Click Create when finished configuring the data set. A task is to import the data will be added to the TDA task queue (see Reviewing Tasks in TDA). The data set may not appear on the repository or be available immediately. You can continue using CTP while the import task is being processed. A message will tell you when the import is finished.
- Click on the data set to edit the data. See Adding and Modifying Data.
