XML automation - Part IV - Sending XML request

This week it is time to send the Web Service request and recieve a response...I have also added some Global parameters in a new sheet in my Excel file so that we can handle test environment properties and so on:



A also added a function for merging Dictionary objects which I use sometimes in my framework. It might not be the best code design approach but I think the concept works well, create a number of dictionaries, merge them together and pass one dictionary to the test case including all test parameters.

Function mergeDictionaries (objDIC1, objDIC2)
If IsObject(objDIC2) Then
    allKeys = objDIC2.Keys
    allItems = objDIC2.Items
    For i = 0 To objDIC2.Count - 1 'Iterate through the array
        If objDIC1.Exists(allKeys(i)) Then
            'Value in objDIC2 is master
            objDIC1.Item(allKeys(i)) = allItems(i)
            Else
            objDIC1.Add allKeys(i),allItems(i)
        End If
    Next
End If
Set mergeDictionaries = objDIC1
End Function

And finally the funcion for sending the request

Function sendXMLRequest (objDictionary)
Dim WinHttpReq
Const HTTPREQUEST_SETCREDENTIALS_FOR_SERVER = 0
Set WinHttpReq = CreateObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1")
WinHttpReq.Open "POST", objDictionary.Item("PostURL"), False
WinHttpReq.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "text/xml;charset=utf-8"
WinHttpReq.setRequestHeader "Accept", _
"text/xml, multipart/related, text/html, image/gif, image/jpeg, *; q=.2, */*; q=.2"
WinHttpReq.setRequestHeader "Content-Transfer-Encoding", "binary"
WinHttpReq.setRequestHeader "Connection", "keep-alive"
WinHttpReq.setRequestHeader "SOAPAction", objDictionary.Item("SOAPAction")
If objDictionary.Item("UserName") <> "" Then    
    WinHttpReq.SetCredentials objDictionary.Item("UserName"), objDictionary.Item("Password"), _
    HTTPREQUEST_SETCREDENTIALS_FOR_SERVER
End If
'Add WS header and foot if SOAP
If objDictionary.Item("RequestType") = "SOAP" Then
    strHeader = "<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?>" &_
        "<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance""" &_
        " xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema""" &_
        " xmlns:soap=""http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"">" &_
        "<soap:Body>"
    strFoot =  "</soap:Body></soap:Envelope>"
End If
WinHttpReq.Send(strHeader & objDictionary.Item("XMLRequest") & strFoot)
sendXMLRequest = WinHttpReq.ResponseText
End Function

So all together it should look like this:

intTestCaseID = 1
Set objMyTestParameters = getTestParametersIntoDictionary ("c:\MyTestData.xls", _
"TestCase", "TestCaseID", intTestCaseID)
Set objMyGlobalParameters = getTestParametersIntoDictionary ("c:\MyTestData.xls", _
"Global", "GlobalID", objMyTestParameters.Item("GlobalID"))
Set objMyTestParameters = mergeDictionaries (objMyGlobalParameters, objMyTestParameters)
objMyTestParameters.Item("XMLRequest") = getXMLTemplate (objMyTestParameters.Item("XMLTemplateFile"), _
objMyTestParameters.Item("XMLTemplate"))
objMyTestParameters.Item("XMLRequest") = setTestParametersInXMLRequest (objMyTestParameters)
objMyTestParameters.Item("XMLResponse") = sendXMLRequest (objMyTestParameters)
Msgbox objMyTestParameters.Item("XMLResponse")

Up next: Part V - Validate the response