stubby4net

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Requirements
• Starting the Server(s)
• Command-line Switches
• Endpoint Configuration
• The Admin Portal
• The Stubs Portal
• Programmatic API
• Running Tests
• See Also
• TODO
• Wishful Thinkings
• NOTES

Installation

As a command-line tool via Chocolatey

cinst stubby

This will install stubby as a command in your PATH.

As a project dependency via NuGet

PM> Install-Package stubby

Requirements

• .NET Framework 4+

Testing with Mono has not been explicitly performed but adherence to Mono-compatible APIs was attempted.

Packaged

• YamlDotNet for loading yaml files.
• CommandLineParser for handling cli arguments.

Optional (for development)

• NUnit

Starting the Server(s)

Some systems require you to sudo before running services on port certain ports (like 80)

[sudo] stubby

Command-line Switches

stubby [-a <port>] [-s <port>] [-t <port>]
       [-l <hostname>] [-d <file>] [-v] [-w] [-m]

-a, --admin <port>          Port for admin portal. Defaults to 8889.
-s, --stubs <port>          Port for stubs portal. Defaults to 8882.
-t, --tls <port>            Port for https stubs portal. Defaults to 7443.
-l, --location <hostname>   Hostname at which to bind stubby.
-d, --data <file>           Data file to pre-load endoints. YAML or JSON format.
-w, --watch                 Auto-reload data file when edits are made.
-m, --mute                  Prevent stubby from printing to the console.
-v, --version               Prints stubby's version number.
--help                      This help text.

Endpoint Configuration

This section explains the usage, intent and behavior of each property on the request and response objects.

Here is a fully-populated, unrealistic endpoint:

-  request:
      url: ^/your/awesome/endpoint$
      method: POST
      query:
         exclamation: post requests can have query strings!
      headers:
         content-type: application/xml
      post: >
         <!xml blah="blah blah blah">
         <envelope>
            <unaryTag/>
         </envelope>
      file: tryMyFirst.xml
   response:
      status: 200
      latency: 5000
      headers:
         content-type: application/xml
         server: stubbedServer/4.2
      body: >
         <!xml blah="blah blah blah">
         <responseXML>
            <content></content>
         </responseXML>
      file: responseData.xml

request

This object is used to match an incoming request to stubby against the available endpoints that have been configured.

url (required)

• is a full-fledged regular expression
• This is the only required property of an endpoint.
• signify the url after the base host and port (i.e. after localhost:8882).
• must begin with /.
• any query paramters are stripped (so don't include them, that's what query is for).
  • /url?some=value&another=value becomes /url
• no checking is done for URI-encoding compliance.
  • If it's invalid, it won't ever trigger a match.

This is the simplest you can get:

-  request:
      url: /

A demonstration using regular expressions:

-  request:
      url: ^/has/to/begin/with/this/

-  request:
      url: /has/to/end/with/this/$

-  request:
      url: ^/must/be/this/exactly/with/optional/trailing/slash/?$

method

• defaults to GET.
• case-insensitive.
• can be any of the following:
  • HEAD
  • GET
  • POST
  • PUT
  • POST
  • DELETE
  • etc.

-  request:
      url: /anything
      method: GET

• it can also be an array of values.

-  request:
      url: /anything
      method: [GET, HEAD]

-  request:
      url: ^/yonder
      method:
         -  GET
         -  HEAD
         -  POST

query

• if ommitted, stubby ignores query parameters for the given url.

• a yaml hashmap of variable/value pairs.

• allows the query parameters to appear in any order in a uri

• The following will match either of these:

  • /with/parameters?search=search+terms&filter=month
  • /with/parameters?filter=month&search=search+terms

-  request:
      url: ^/with/parameters$
      query:
         search: search terms
         filter: month

post

• if ommitted, any post data is ignored.
• the body contents of the server request, such as form data.

-  request:
      url: ^/post/form/data$
      post: name=John&email=john@example.com

file

• if supplied, replaces post with the contents of the locally given file.
  • paths are relative from where stubby was executed.
• if the file is not found when the request is made, falls back to post for matching.
• allows you to split up stubby data across multiple files

-  request:
      url: ^/match/against/file$
      file: postedData.json
      post: '{"fallback":"data"}'

postedData.json

{"fileContents":"match against this if the file is here"}

• if postedData.json doesn't exist on the filesystem when /match/against/file is requested, stubby will match post contents against {"fallback":"data"} (from post) instead.

headers

• if ommitted, stubby ignores headers for the given url.
• case-insensitive matching of header names.
• a hashmap of header/value pairs similar to query.

The following endpoint only accepts requests with application/json post values:

-  request:
      url: /post/json
      method: post
      headers:
         content-type: application/json

response

Assuming a match has been made against the given request object, data from response is used to build the stubbed response back to the client.

status

• the HTTP status code of the response.
• integer or integer-like string.
• defaults to 200.

-  request:
      url: ^/im/a/teapot$
      method: POST
   response:
      status: 420

body

• contents of the response body
• defaults to an empty content body

-  request:
      url: ^/give/me/a/smile$
   response:
      body: ':)'

file

• similar to request.file, but the contents of the file are used as the body.

-  request:
      url: /
   response:
      file: extremelyLongJsonFile.json

headers

• similar to request.headers except that these are sent back to the client.

-  request:
      url: ^/give/me/some/json$
   response:
      headers:
         content-type: application/json
      body: >
         [{
            "name":"John",
            "email":"john@example.com"
         },{
            "name":"Jane",
            "email":"jane@example.com"
         }]

latency

• time to wait, in milliseconds, before sending back the response
• good for testing timeouts, or slow connections

-  request:
      url: ^/hello/to/jupiter$
   response:
      latency: 800000
      body: Hello, World!

The Admin Portal

The admin portal is a RESTful(ish) endpoint running on localhost:8889. Or wherever you described through stubby's options.

Supplying Endpoints to Stubby

Submit POST requests to localhost:8889 or load a data-file (-d) with the following structure for each endpoint:

• request: describes the client's call to the server
  • method: GET/POST/PUT/DELETE/etc.
  • url: the URI regex string. GET parameters should also be included inline here
  • query: a key/value map of query string parameters included with the request
  • headers: a key/value map of headers the server should respond to
  • post: a string matching the textual body of the response.
  • file: if specified, returns the contents of the given file as the request post. If the file cannot be found at request time, post is used instead
• response: describes the server's response to the client
  • headers: a key/value map of headers the server should use in it's response
  • latency: the time in milliseconds the server should wait before responding. Useful for testing timeouts and latency
  • file: if specified, returns the contents of the given file as the response body. If the file cannot be found at request time, body is used instead
  • body: the textual body of the server's response to the client
  • status: the numerical HTTP status code (200 for OK, 404 for NOT FOUND, etc.)

YAML (file only)

-  request:
      url: ^/path/to/something$
      method: POST
      headers:
         authorization: "Basic usernamez:passwordinBase64"
      post: this is some post data in textual format
   response:
      headers:
         Content-Type: application/json
      latency: 1000
      status: 200
      body: You're request was successfully processed!

-  request:
      url: ^/path/to/anotherThing
      query:
         a: anything
         b: more
      method: GET
      headers:
         Content-Type: application/json
      post:
   response:
      headers:
         Content-Type: application/json
         Access-Control-Allow-Origin: "*"
      status: 204
      file: path/to/page.html

-  request:
      url: ^/path/to/thing$
      method: POST
      headers:
         Content-Type: application/json
      post: this is some post data in textual format
   response:
      headers:
         Content-Type: application/json
      status: 304

JSON (file or POST/PUT)

[
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "^/path/to/something$", 
      "post": "this is some post data in textual format", 
      "headers": {
         "authorization": "Basic usernamez:passwordinBase64"
      },
      "method": "POST"
    }, 
    "response": {
      "status": 200, 
      "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
      },
      "latency": 1000,
      "body": "You're request was successfully processed!"
    }
  }, 
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "^/path/to/anotherThing", 
      "query": {
         "a": "anything",
         "b": "more"
      },
      "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
      },
      "post": null, 
      "method": "GET"
    }, 
    "response": {
      "status": 204, 
      "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*"
      }, 
      "file": "path/to/page.html"
    }
  }, 
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "^/path/to/thing$",
      "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
      },
      "post": "this is some post data in textual format", 
      "method": "POST"
    }, 
    "response": {
      "status": 304, 
      "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
      } 
    }
  }
]

If you want to load more than one endpoint via file, use either a JSON array or YAML list (-) syntax. On success, the response will contain Location in the header with the newly created resources' location

Getting the Current List of Stubbed Endpoints

Performing a GET request on localhost:8889 will return a JSON array of all currently saved responses. It will reply with 204 : No Content if there are none saved.

Performing a GET request on localhost:8889/<id> will return the JSON object representing the response with the supplied id.

The Status Page

You can also view the currently configured endpoints by going to localhost:8889/status

Changing Existing Endpoints

Perform PUT requests in the same format as using POST, only this time supply the id in the path. For instance, to update the response with id 4 you would PUT to localhost:8889/4.

Deleting Endpoints

Send a DELETE request to localhost:8889/<id>

The Stubs Portal

Requests sent to any url at localhost:8882 (or wherever you told stubby to run) will search through the available endpoints and, if a match is found, respond with that endpoint's response data

How Endpoints Are Matched

For a given endpoint, stubby only cares about matching the properties of the request that have been defined in the YAML. The exception to this rule is method; if it is omitted it is defaulted to GET.

For instance, the following will match any POST request to the root url:

-  request:
      url: /
      method: POST
   response: {}

The request could have any headers and any post body it wants. It will match the above.

Pseudocode:

for each <endpoint> of stored endpoints {

   for each <property> of <endpoint> {
      if <endpoint>.<property> != <incoming request>.<property>
         next endpoint
   }

   return <endpoint>
}

Programmatic API

Referencing Stubby in Your Project

Add stubby as a reference within your project:

    PM> Install-Package stubby

The Arugments Class

The Arguments class is a container for options used by the Stubby class during construction that correlate to the command-line options.

Public Properties

• Admin - Port for admin portal. Defaults to 8889.
• Stubs - Port for stubs portal. Defaults to 8882.
• Tls - Port for stubs https portal. Defaults to 7443.
• Location - Hostname at which to bind stubby. Defaults to localhost.
• Data - Data file location to pre-load endpoints. YAML format.
• Mute - Prevent stubby from logging to the console. Defaults to true.
• Watch - Monitor supplied data file for changes and reload endpoints if necessary. Defaults to false.

Here is the constructor and default values of each (public) property.

public Arguments() {
   Admin = 8889;
   Stubs = 8882;
   Tls = 7443;
   Location = "localhost";
   Data = null;
   Mute = true;
   Watch = false;
}

The Stubby Class

There is a single constructor that takes an instance of Arguments as it's parameter.

// Constructor
public Stubby(IArguments arguments);

//Start stubby's services
public void Start();

// Stop stubby's services
public void Stop();

// Get a listing of all of stubby's configured endpoints
public IList<Endpoint> GetAll();

// Get an endpoint back by id
public Endpoint Get(uint id);

// Find an endpoint by it's matching Request
public Endpoint Find(Request request);

// Swap out the configuration of one of the endpoints.
// True if successful.
public bool Replace(uint id, Endpoint endpoint);

// Remove an endpoint by id
// True if the operation succeeded
public bool Delete(uint id);

// Remove all configured endpoints from stubby
public void DeleteAll();

// Add a new endpoint configuration
// out: the generated id
// True if successful
public bool Add(Endpoint endpoint, out uint id);

// Add many new endpoint configurations
// out: the generated ids
// True if successful
public bool Add(IEnumerable<Endpoint> endpoints, out IList<uint> ids);

An Example (Pardon my NUnit)

[TestFixture]
public class MyIntegrationTest {
   private readonly Stubby _stubby = new Stubby(new Arguments {
      Admin = 9999,
      Stubs = 9992,
      Mute = true,
      Data = "../../YAML/endpoints.yaml"
   });

   [TestFixtureSetUp]
   public void Before() {
      _stubby.Start();
   }

   [TestFixtureTearDown]
   public void After() {
      _stubby.Stop();
   }

   [Test]...
}

See Also

• stubby4node: A node.js implementation of stubby
• stubby4j: A java implementation of stubby

TODO

• post parameter as a hashmap under request for easy form-submission value matching

NOTES

• Copyright 2013 Eric Mrak, Alexander Zagniotov
• License Apache v2.0