Validation of the download links: recommendation

[sirj77]

Hi guys,

Is there a way how to validate (check) the download links on the page using Seleno? After a click on the download link there will be a Download window open (in case if the url is valid). How to test it in a simple way? I Don't need to download the files in terms of automation, just need to be sure that link is valid and user can download any file.

I'm using Seleno + BDDfy, c#.

Thank you for the suggestions!

[robdmoore]

You could pull out the value of the href attribute and do a HEAD request to that URL and check for a 200 response using HttpClient?

[sirj77]

robdmoore, yes, it makes sense. I've found some solution for that, but it is not working as expected and I cannot understand what Im doing wrong.

Here a piece of code inside my page object:

        public bool DoesTheFileExistRemotely()
        {
            var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(UriToImage);
            request.Method = "HEAD";

            try
            {
                using (var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
                {
                    if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK)
                    {
                        return true;
                    }
                    return false;
                }
            }
            catch (WebException) { return false; }
            catch
            {
                return false;
            }
        }

        public string UriToImage
        {
            get
            {
                return Find.Element(By.XPath(DownloadLinkXpath)).GetAttribute("href");
            }
        }

        private const string DownloadLinkXpath = "(//*[@class='media-download'])[1]";

Here my test:

....
       public void Then_I_will_be_able_to_download_the_file()
        {
            _varOfMyPage.DoesTheFileExistRemotely();
        }

The problem is that a test is passed no matter what I'm putting inside the DoesTheFileExistRemotely() method, and I need to check not only the HttpStatusCode.OK, but also that the URL will not be http://my.site/system/notfound404 (because if the url in my case is not correct the response will be with StatusCode = OK, but I'll get the page notfound404) How I can write it correctly?

[robdmoore]

The doesTheFileExistRemotely method returns a Boolean. If you want the test to fail you need to assert it returns true.

Presumably your 404 page either has a return code of 404 in which case your code will already work, or it will have a redirect to your 404 page in which case you can check the Location header on the response.

[sirj77]

Ohh, you are definitely right, it's my fault, I just called the method instead of having Assert :)

Assert.That(_varOfMyPag.DoesTheFileExistRemotely().Equals(true));

I'm a bit stuck, because I don't know what exactly I can use in case of redirecting to the 404 page (it returns response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK). Do you know how to check the Location header on the response in my DoesTheFileExistRemotely() method?

[robdmoore]

try looking for response.Headers["Location"]

[sirj77]

Unfortunately, it returns in both cases (for a valid link and link that redirects to the 404 notfound page) false:

public bool DoesTheFileExistRemotely()
        {
            var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(UriToImage);
            request.Method = "HEAD";

            try
            {
                using (var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
                {
                    if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK)
                    {
                        if (response.Headers["Location"].Contains("not found"))
                        {
                            return false;
                        }
                        return true;
                    }
                    return false;
                }
            }
            catch (WebException) { return false; }
            catch
            {
                return false;
            }
        }

Did I do something wrong in my code?

[robdmoore]

If you set a breakpoint and manually inspect what's in response.Headers["Location"] is there a difference for 404 vs not 404?

[sirj77]

I've inspected it and, as I understood right, there is no difference for 404 and not 404 (in both cases a parameter Location = null under Headers, see screenshot). I've also picked out the difference in some retrieved parameters for a response. I assume that can create a condition with a check on ContentLenghth (or ContentType) to have a test failed in case of redirection to the 404 not found page?

[robdmoore]

Right, so in that case your logic to return a 404 page might need to be changed to return a 404 rather than a 200. That's the most semantic way of telling if it's a Not Found page.

If you can't for some reason then maybe in this instance you can look for the text/html Content Type, although that's a bit of a hack.

[sirj77]

Yep, thanks for your support :+1: I've tried and it seems that's good for me so far, I just checked with this condition:

if (response.ContentType.Contains("html")) {
return false; }
return true;

Because, if the url is not correct and redirects to the 404 not found page, the value of ContentType is "text/html" in my case