[Webtest] [dev] migration to htmlunit started

[Marc Guillemot]

Hi,

I've committed all the changes I've performed to migrate from httpunit to htmlunit (new users: consult the mailing list 
archive to see the reasons). It won't currently compile and should not compile as I haven't worked on the extension package.


Status:
-------------

- "normal" classes:
    all classes except those in com.canoo.webtest.extension have been migrated.
    Html parsing warnings and errors are not collected as htmlunit can't do this currently but my patch to fix this will 
come very soon.

- junit test classes:
    all classes except those in com.canoo.webtest.extension have been migrated and run. Some tests may have lost their 
interest as I was just considering migrating them without taking too much time looking at their logic. I've added a 
"TODO migration" task tag on 2 places for some not migrated lines of code that need to be fixed.

- selftests
   all selftests are working except those using extension steps. Some test sequences needed adaptation but this was 
logical (httpunit's behavior seems to have been incorrect)

- lib
   contains new libs needed by htmlunit and a recent nightly build of htmlunit (contains some patches for a few js 
functionalities I've posted there to have the selftests working properly)

- documentation
   nothing done

- steps
    Old setXXX classes have been removed, these steps now do the same as the new_setXXX steps.
    Button and index locators have been removed

webtest DOESN'T compile currently and should not compile to avoid generating a labeled build as long as migration isn't 
achieved. Locally I've just added an "<exclude name="com/canoo/webtest/extension/**"/>" in the build.xml to the compile 
instruction and commented out the selftests concerning extensions to be able to work on everything but the extensions.


Notes:
-------------

I haven't worked on the extension classes until now because most of them don't have selftests and therefore I couldn't 
rely on the selftests to ensure that the migration has been done correctly.

Performing the migration, I've had to extend htmlunit for some javascript features. The patches have been rapidly 
applied by the htmlunit committers (many thanks). htmlunit code is really well written and easy to extend.

The work took a bit more time as I announced last July because I had to concentrate myself on my paid work first (does 
someone need independent expert webtest consulting here? ;-))


What's next?
-------------

For developers:
   we have now to work on the extensions and on the documentation to finish the migration. Then perform many many tests 
(the selftests aren't enough) to ensure that the behavior's differences for current test sequences are minimal and 
document these differences.

For impatient users:
   if you don't rely on some extensions you can already get the current status through cvs and perform your own build 
(as long as I haven't forgotten to commit some files ;-)).


Marc.