ExVCR

Record and replay HTTP interactions library for elixir. It's inspired by Ruby's VCR (https://github.com/vcr/vcr), and trying to provide similar functionalities.

Basics

• The following HTTP libraries can be applied.

  • <a href="https://github.com/cmullaparthi/ibrowse" target="_blank">ibrowse</a>-based libraries.
    • <a href="https://github.com/myfreeweb/httpotion" target="_blank">HTTPotion</a>
  • <a href="https://github.com/benoitc/hackney" target="_blank">hackney</a>-based libraries.
    • <a href="https://github.com/edgurgel/httpoison" target="_blank">HTTPoison</a>
    • support is very limited, and tested only with sync request of HTTPoison yet.
  • <a href="http://erlang.org/doc/man/httpc.html" target="_blank">httpc</a>-based libraries.
    • <a href="https://github.com/tim/erlang-oauth/" target="_blank">erlang-oauth</a>
    • <a href="https://github.com/roundscope/tirexs/" target="_blank">tirexs</a>
    • support is very limited, and tested only with :httpc.request/1 and :httpc.request/4

• HTTP interactions are recorded as JSON file.

  • The JSON file can be recorded automatically (vcr_cassettes) or manually updated (custom_cassettes)

Notes for v0.1.0 or later

Please specify use ExVCR.Mock instead of import ExVCR.Mock. Otherwise, (CompileError) ***: function adapter/0 undefined might be displayed.

Usage

• Add use ExVCR.Mock to the test module. This mocks ibrowse by default. For using hackney, specify adapter: ExVCR.Adapter.Hackney options as follows.

Example with ibrowse

defmodule ExVCR.Adapter.IBrowseTest do
  use ExUnit.Case
  use ExVCR.Mock

  setup_all do
    ExVCR.Config.cassette_library_dir("fixture/vcr_cassettes")
    :ok
  end

  test "example single request" do
    use_cassette "example_ibrowse" do
      :ibrowse.start
      {:ok, status_code, _headers, body} = :ibrowse.send_req('http://example.com', [], :get)
      assert status_code == '200'
      assert to_string(body) =~ %r/Example Domain/
    end
  end

  test "httpotion" do
    use_cassette "example_httpotion" do
      HTTPotion.start
      assert HTTPotion.get("http://example.com", []).body =~ %r/Example Domain/
    end
  end
end

Example with hackney

defmodule ExVCR.Adapter.HackneyTest do
  use ExUnit.Case
  use ExVCR.Mock, adapter: ExVCR.Adapter.Hackney

  setup_all do
    HTTPoison.start
  end

  test "get request" do
    use_cassette "httpoison_get" do
      assert HTTPoison.get("http://example.com").body =~ %r/Example Domain/
    end
  end
end

Example with httpc

defmodule ExVCR.Adapter.HttpcTest do
  use ExUnit.Case
  use ExVCR.Mock, adapter: ExVCR.Adapter.Httpc

  setup_all do
    :inets.start
  end

  test "get request" do
    use_cassette "example_httpc_request" do
      {:ok, result} = :httpc.request('http://example.com')
      {{_http_version, _status_code = 200, _reason_phrase}, _headers, body} = result
      assert to_string(body) =~ ~r/Example Domain/
    end
  end

Custom Cassettes

You can manually define custom cassette json file for more flexible response control rather than just recoding the actual server response.

• Optional 2nd parameter of ExVCR.Config.cassette_library_dir method specifies the custom cassette directory. The directory is separated from vcr cassette one for avoiding mistakenly overwriting.
• Adding custom: true option to use_cassette macro indicates to use the custom cassette, and it just returns the pre-defined json response, instead of requesting to server.

defmodule ExVCR.MockTest do
  use ExUnit.Case
  import ExVCR.Mock

  setup_all do
    ExVCR.Config.cassette_library_dir("fixture/vcr_cassettes", "fixture/custom_cassettes")
    :ok
  end

  test "custom with valid response" do
    use_cassette "response_mocking", custom: true do
      assert HTTPotion.get("http://example.com", []).body =~ %r/Custom Response/
    end
  end

The custom json file format is the same as vcr cassettes.

fixture/custom_cassettes/response_mocking.json

[
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "http://example.com"
    },
    "response": {
      "status_code": 200,
      "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "text/html"
      },
      "body": "<h1>Custom Response</h1>"
    }
  }
]

Recording VCR Cassettes

Matching

ExVCR uses url parameter to match request and cassettes. The "url" parameter in the json file is taken as regexp string.

Removing Sensitive Data

ExVCR.Config.filter_sensitive_data(pattern, placeholder) method can be used to remove sensitive data. It searches for string matches with pattern and replaces with placeholder.

test "replace sensitive data" do
  ExVCR.Config.filter_sensitive_data("<PASSWORD>.+</PASSWORD>", "PLACEHOLDER")
  use_cassette "sensitive_data" do
    assert HTTPotion.get("http://something.example.com", []).body =~ %r/PLACEHOLDER/
  end
end

Ignoring query params in url

If ExVCR.Config.filter_url_params(true) is specified, query params in url will be ignored when recording cassettes.

test "filter url param flag removes url params when recording cassettes" do
  ExVCR.Config.filter_url_params(true)
  use_cassette "example_ignore_url_params" do
    assert HTTPotion.get(
      "http://localhost:34000/server?should_not_be_contained", []).body =~ %r/test_response/
  end
  json = File.read!("#{__DIR__}/../#{@dummy_cassette_dir}/example_ignore_url_params.json")
  refute String.contains?(json, "should_not_be_contained")

Mix Tasks

The following tasks are added by including exvcr package.

• mix vcr
• mix vcr.delete
• mix vcr.check
• mix vcr.show
• mix vcr --help

[mix vcr] Show cassettes

$ mix vcr
Showing list of cassettes in [fixture/vcr_cassettes]
  [File Name]                              [Last Update]
  example_httpotion.json                   2013/11/07 23:24:49
  example_ibrowse.json                     2013/11/07 23:24:49
  example_ibrowse_multiple.json            2013/11/07 23:24:48
  httpotion_delete.json                    2013/11/07 23:24:47
  httpotion_patch.json                     2013/11/07 23:24:50
  httpotion_post.json                      2013/11/07 23:24:51
  httpotion_put.json                       2013/11/07 23:24:52

Showing list of cassettes in [fixture/custom_cassettes]
  [File Name]                              [Last Update]
  method_mocking.json                      2013/10/06 22:05:38
  response_mocking.json                    2013/09/29 17:23:38
  response_mocking_regex.json              2013/10/06 18:13:45

[mix vcr.delete] Delete cassettes

The mix vcr.delete task deletes the cassettes that contains the specified pattern in the file name.

$ mix vcr.delete ibrowse
Deleted example_ibrowse.json.
Deleted example_ibrowse_multiple.json.

If -i (--interactive) option is specified, it asks for confirmation before deleting each file.

$ mix vcr.delete ibrowse -i
delete example_ibrowse.json? y
Deleted example_ibrowse.json.
delete example_ibrowse_multiple.json? y
Deleted example_ibrowse_multiple.json.

If -a (--all) option is specified, all the cassetes in the specified folder becomes the target for delete.

[mix vcr.check] Check cassettes

The mix vcr.check shows how many times each cassette is applied while executing mix test tasks. It is intended for verifying the cassettes are properly used. [Cassette Counts] indicates the count that the pre-recorded json cassettes are applied. [Server Counts] indicates the count that server access is performed.

$ mix vcr.check
...............................
31 tests, 0 failures
Showing hit counts of cassettes in [fixture/vcr_cassettes]
  [File Name]                              [Cassette Counts]    [Server Counts]
  example_httpotion.json                   1                    0
  example_ibrowse.json                     1                    0
  example_ibrowse_multiple.json            2                    0
  httpotion_delete.json                    1                    0
  httpotion_patch.json                     1                    0
  httpotion_post.json                      1                    0
  httpotion_put.json                       1                    0
  sensitive_data.json                      0                    2
  server1.json                             0                    2
  server2.json                             2                    2

Showing hit counts of cassettes in [fixture/custom_cassettes]
  [File Name]                              [Cassette Counts]    [Server Counts]
  method_mocking.json                      1                    0
  response_mocking.json                    1                    0
  response_mocking_regex.json              1                    0

The target test file can be limited by specifying test files, as similar as mix test tasks.

$ mix vcr.check test/exvcr_test.exs
.............
13 tests, 0 failures
Showing hit counts of cassettes in [fixture/vcr_cassettes]
  [File Name]                              [Cassette Counts]    [Server Counts]
  example_httpotion.json                   1                    0
...
...

[mix vcr.show] Show cassettes

The mix vcr.show task displays the contents of cassettes json file in the prettified format.

$ mix vcr.show fixture/vcr_cassettes/httpoison_get.json
[
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "http://example.com",
      "headers": [],
      "method": "get",
      "body": "",
      "options": []
    },
...

[mix vcr --help] Help

Displays helps for mix sub-tasks.

$ mix vcr --help
Usage: mix vcr [options]
  Used to display the list of cassettes

  -h (--help)         Show helps for vcr mix tasks
  -d (--dir)          Specify vcr cassettes directory
  -c (--custom)       Specify custom cassettes directory

Usage: mix vcr.delete [options] [cassete-file-names]
  Used to delete cassettes

  -d (--dir)          Specify vcr cassettes directory
  -c (--custom)       Specify custom cassettes directory
  -i (--interactive)  Request confirmation before attempting to delete
  -a (--all)          Delete all the files by ignoring specified [filenames]

Usage: mix vcr.check [options] [test-files]
  Used to check cassette use on test execution

  -d (--dir)          Specify vcr cassettes directory
  -c (--custom)       Specify custom cassettes directory

Usage: mix vcr.show [cassete-file-names]
  Used to show cassette contents

Notes

If the cassette save directory is changed from the default, [-d, --dir] option (for vcr cassettes) and [-c, --custom] option (for custom cassettes) can be used to specify the directory.

IEx Helper

ExVCR.IEx module provides simple helper functions to display the http request/response in json format, instead of recording in the cassette files.

% iex -S mix
Erlang R16B03 (erts-5.10.4) ...
Interactive Elixir (0.12.5) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(1)> require ExVCR.IEx
nil
iex(2)> ExVCR.IEx.print do
...(2)>   :ibrowse.send_req('http://example.com', [], :get)
...(2)> end
[
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "http://example.com",
      "headers": [],
      "method": "get",
      "body": "",
      "options": []
    },
    "response": {
      "type": "ok",
      "status_code": 200,
...

The adapter option can be specified as adapter argument of print function, as follows.

% iex -S mix
Erlang R16B03 (erts-5.10.4) ...

Interactive Elixir (0.12.5) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(1)> require ExVCR.IEx
nil
iex(2)> ExVCR.IEx.print(adapter: ExVCR.Adapter.Hackney) do
...(2)>   HTTPoison.get("http://example.com").body
...(2)> end
[
  {
    "request": {
      "url": "http://example.com",
...

TODO

• Improve performance, as it's very slow.