Automatic generation of test data for XML schema-based testing of web services

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a widely accepted paradigm for development of distributed applications using interoperable and flexible software components. Still the preferred technology for SOA implementation is provided by the web services. Their interface as well as complex interactions are described with XML-based standards, such as Web Service Description Language (WSDL) and Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (WS-BPEL). The WSDL and WS-BPEL documents allow automation of test data generation through instantiation of the referenced XML Schemas. The approach proposed in this paper is a step towards such goal. It provides derivation of XML instances from a given XML Schema. The approach is automated in a software tool supporting data-driven test definition. The tool automatically extracts an XML Schema form a WSDL or WS-BPEL documents and generates XML messages needed for web service interactions. Since the proposed approach supports generation of both correct and incorrect XML instances, the tool is applicable to functional as well as robustness testing of web services.