AppliCon Launches Detroubulator Automated Testing Tool Into the Growing SAP Open Source Ecosystem.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Answering the need to save time and increase quality of SAP integration projects by automating testing procedures, AppliCon has introduced the open source Detroubulator software tool for automated unit testing of SAP XI mapping programs. The Detroubulator tool minimizes the effort required to run tests, enabling the SAP XI developer to be testing all the time at close to zero cost. Developers can not only save time, but increase the quality of the end result and help SAP customers get more value from their investment in SAP's integration platform.

"Detroubulator came about basically from our use of SAP-provided tools on a daily basis. We needed test automation, but the tools simply did not exist," said Detroubulator co-author Morten Wittrock. "So we decided to write them ourselves. Sharing and contributing to the community are very powerful and positive acts, so releasing the tool as open source was a natural next step. It's really the classic 'scratching an itch' open source story."

Testing of mapping programs is an important component of overall SAP XI quality assurance. However, manual testing using SAP XI's built-in tools is overly time-consuming. Checking test results manually is error-prone and because of the effort required, leads to less testing and reduced quality.

Detroubulator reduces the effort needed so that testing becomes an integrated and automated part of development. Defects can be discovered moments after they're introduced rather than months down the line so changes become less risky. Furthermore, the cost of resolving defects decreases by reducing the amount of time between detection and the introduction of the defect.

The details of a test are stored in a test file, which is a simple XML document. At runtime, Detroubulator reads this file, executes the mapping program on the remote XI server, checks the output against the tester's expectations and reports the test results. Detroubulator reporting is configurable and extensible, supporting XML output, HTML output, console output, audio cues and custom reports developed in Java.

Detroubulator is aimed at developers comfortable working at the command line and editing XML documents and requires XPath proficiency. It is available under the GNU GPL open source license. For more information visit http://www.applicon.dk/detroubulator.