Setting up an API Test Framework

Question

I'm testing an API and I'm looking to define my payload using classes so that my program can then deserialize/serialize into any format (namely XML in my case). Below is an example of the payload:

     <Order>
       <BillingAddress>
         <AddressLine1></AddressLine1>
         <AddressLine2></AddressLine2>
         <City></City>
       </BillingAddress>
       <Items>
         <Item IsKit="false">
         <CountryVATRate></CountryVATRate>
         <Group></Group>
         <Reference></Reference>
       </Item>
       <Item IsKit="false">
        <CountryVATRate>0.25</CountryVATRate>
        <Group>5360693120</Group>
        <Reference>5360693120</Reference>
       </Item>
     </Items>
     <OrderAmount>35</OrderAmount>
     <TimeStamp>2017-03-30 00:00:00.102</TimeStamp>
    </Order>

So my thinking is that I would have an overall Order class which looks something like the below

    public class Order()
    {
      BillingAddress bAddr; //another class
      List Items;
      double OrderAmount;
      DateTime TimeStamp;
     }

What I am trying to work out is the best way of setting up my framework so that in the example of the BillingAddress class I can set up a series of properties e.g. AddressLine1/AddressLine1 etc which can then be called when I run the test

Any advice on how to structure the test framework would be most appreciated

Answer 1

I’m not sure how it works in C# but you may use the optional arguments. Also I would recommend to create a models of your payloads. - models -> - xml - xml then pass this file as your payload. In your case it’s XML and for example interface.

Answer 2

You are on the right track here, but do not reinvent the wheel. Simply serializing the xml with any of the available C# serializers will get you started. I did the exact same thing for a rest API in Java. It might even be possible to generate the XSL files and then create classes from them (it was in my case, thanks to the IDE). I am no expert in Visual Studio, but it should be capable of this.