Extend ExternalDataPlugin to get DataTable from a custom method

[lucavoit]

Hello there!
I have recently started to analyse reqnroll as our teams future framework of choice. We really like what we have explored so far, but there is one important scenario we need to support, which I think is currently not entirely possible:

We need to test an application that creates certain connections over different protocols. These connections can have many parameters, up to 20 in some cases. These parameters can then also take on many different values which creates the need for us to test all of them in their different combinations. That is where we feel there is a limitation at the moment, because the easiest way to create this parameter matrix would be to iterate over the possible values (mostly enums) and create it in a method.

So tl;dr: Would it be possible to entend the ExternalDataPlugin as such, that it also can handle the data coming from a method within the test project, that would create the DataSource(or DataTable) object?

Thank you in advance for your answer!

[gasparnagy]

@lucavoit This is not really possible. The ExternalDataPlugin extends the scenario outline examples during compilation. This means that by that time your test project is not compiled yet, so you cannot run a method from it.

If you can move the test data generation code to a separate project, you could use it, but I would not include that into the existing plugin, because the location of that other assembly during compilation would be error-prone. What you could do instead is just copy the current ExternalDataPlugin code to your project (remove everything you don't need maybe) and add the data generation method to that project. It will be then you custom generator plugin.