how to make custom extraction rule property data driven?

Question

I have created custom extraction rule and the property i need the properties to be data driven i.e. I want to attach a data source (CSV file). how do I go about it ?

Followings are the screen shots and code snippets that describes the problem

Code snippet for custom extraction rule class

public class CustomeExtractionClass : ExtractionRule
{
    public string Name
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public override void Extract(object sender, ExtractionEventArgs e)
    {
          // Code to extract text/values from Response Based On NAME(i.e. Property) value 
             received from UI
    }
}

UI for Name property

Note : Textbox next to Name property

How do I make it Data driven ? just like the one we get while inserting FormPost parameters... here is the example

Note the dropdown button bottom right which pulls up the attached data sources... I want the Name property values to be attached to the same data source.... how do i go about it ???

Answer 1

Finally after spending many hours I was able to get the values from the CSV file into my custom extraction rule. I could not bind the CSV file column to the Extraction rule property, however i got the work around. here is what i was missing

[DataBinding("DataSource1", "mycsvfile#csv", "ProcessInstanceID", "MyProcessInstanceID")]

here are the steps to achieve it

Step 1 : Add data Source to WebTest (Skip if already added)

Step 2 : Generate Code from WebTest (Skip if already done)

Step 3 : Bind datasource (i.e. CSV file) columns by adding following lines of code just above the declaration of your webtest class.

[DataSource("DataSource1", "Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.DataSource.CSV", "|DataDirectory|\\customextractionrule\\mycsvfile.csv", Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting.DataBindingAccessMethod.Sequential, Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting.DataBindingSelectColumns.SelectOnlyBoundColumns, "mycsvfile#csv")]
[DataBinding("DataSource1", "mycsvfile#csv", "ProcessInstanceID", "MyProcessInstanceID")]
public class WebTest2Coded : WebTest
{

Note : in above code "MyProcessInstanceID" is the name of context parameter which will be created by visual studio and value of CSV file column will be assigned to this context parameter. you can give any name you wish.

Step 4 : Access the value of the Context parameter in your custom extraction rule

public override void Extract(object sender, ExtractionEventArgs e)
    {
        string ProcessIDinCSvFile =  e.WebTest.Context["MyProcessInstanceID"].ToString());

Answer 2

To set the context parameter to the text within the field just enter the full name of the data source field enclosed in doubled curly braces into the field. The correct form of text is shown circled in red in an image in the question, namely {{DataSource1.mycsvfile#csv.ProcessInstanceID}}.

Data source fields can also be accessed directly from the context by code such as

string theText = e.WebTest.Context["DataSource1.mycsvfile#csv.ProcessInstanceID"].ToString();

If the Name field of the extraction rule is set to the name of a content parameter (ie not to its value) then the current value can be read out and a new value inserted with code like

string theText = e.WebTest.Context[Name].ToString();
e.WebTest.Context[Name] = "The new string";