ResponseHound has been an incredibly useful tool in my most recent work project. My team is building an application that uses a GWT (JavaScript) client-side app connecting to a PHP server. They communicate using JSON. As usual, some of the more stringent testing (unit) has been pushed to the side. ResponseHound gives us a way to validate that the entire server system is doing what it’s supposed to be doing for each incoming request.

I’ve been continually adding new features here and there as I find that I need them. I have not been pushing these out the git repository since I have not documented them well or fully tested them. I’ve also been throwing around some alternatives for writing tests. This might include a more OOP based approach. I’m also eyeballing an possibility of XML tests. That seems a bit trickier.

Some of the features that I’ve added that need testing are:

• Request options
  • Show the full request URL
  • Show all response data formatted
  • Show raw response data
• Conditional tests
  • Test will only execute if another piece of data matches the condition
  • Match against null/notNull, a single value, or a set of values
• Direct JSON request emulation
  • Allows passing JSON directly in for a request
  • For complex requests, this is very useful

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get these tested and ready for release soon. I also plan on putting together a full demo soon, complete with testing-rig controller.

I’m always open to suggestions or recommendations. Send me your comments.

You can find more info on ResponseHound in the wiki: http://sethmay.net/wiki/ResponseHound.