Ajax Server Interface Description Language (AIL)

Artemis supports the usage of AIL descriptions when testing web applications. An AIL description is a specification of the client-server communication conducted using Ajax. These descriptions allow Artemis to test the client-side without a concrete instance of the server-side.

This functionality is described in more detail in Server Interface Descriptions for Automated Testing of JavaScript Web Applications, Casper S. Jensen, Anders Møller and Zhendong Su. ESEC/FSE 2013.

Using AIL Descriptions

AIL descriptions is used by Artemis through the ailproxy.js HTTP proxy. This proxy accepts an AIL description file and acts as a mock server listening on localhost port 8080.

To use this proxy Artemis must be run using the -t argument.

Generating AIL Descriptions

AIL descriptions can be tedious to write by hand. This can be mitigated by using the AIL learning algorithm provided in the contrib folder. The AIL learning algorithm uses a dump (raw) of concrete client-server traffic to generate an AIL description.

The raw traffic can be collected by using the HTTPdump proxy.

The learning algorithm is provided as a python script in the contrib/ajaxinterface folder.