Greetings! I am not part of this project to add auto-correlation to JMeter but here is my take on it:
(Note: I use the words "script" and "test plan" interchangeably) Correlation is the process of capturing the session-specific information passed from server to client and back to server for purposes of maintaining state, etc in http interactions. Manual correlation is where the person(s) developing the JMeter test plan manually identify the parameter(s) that needs to be captured, find where the values of those parameters were initially introduced in the script, inserts the appropriate extractors to capture the values, then replaces the recorded values with the JMeter variables used to hold the extracted values. Auto-correlation is doing this process programmatically. In general, auto-correlation is done one of two ways: - *Two Scripts*: Record the same sequence of actions twice then run a comparison of the two recordings (.jmx files) and look for where data and parameters differ. Ignoring differences that are generally irrelevant, like timestamps, present those differences to the JMeter user, allowing each difference to be accepted or ignored by the user. For accepted differences, automatically insert a relevant extractor at the relevant place and search/replace the recorded value with the JMeter variable used in relevant extraction. These steps are performed on one of the recorded scripts, generally the initial recorded script; the other recorded script is generally discarded after the process is complete. - *Rules*: Using rules that define the names of parameters that need to be captured and how to capture them, these rules are applied to a test plan. Based on criteria specified in the rule, the test plan is analyzed, rule matches identified, extractors insert, and hard-coded parameter values replaced with JMeter variables holding the extracted values I will stop here. As I said, this is my understanding of the process and may or may not be exactly the processes/methods used in the proposed enhancement. Feel free to correct me. Hope that helps! -- Scott Dean North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC USA On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 5:53 AM Vladimir Sitnikov < [email protected]> wrote: > >About new feature of auto-correlation, we prepared specification written > as manual. > > That is great. It really helps to preview the feature. > > However, I fail to understand what is "correlation with JMX file". > I see it consumes an extra JMX file, but it is not clear what should be > there in the file, > it is not clear what is added as a result. > > Does "Correlation" differ from "Auto-Correlation"? Should just one of them > be used in all the places? > Is there a "manual correlation"? > > How Rule differs from Correlation? > Is Rule mandatory for Correlation to work? > > Vladimir >
