Problem to solve
In the Katalon user forum, there was an old post in May 2019
which has not been answered yet until Aug 2024.
The original poster had a Web Service Response as follows:
{
"body": {
"user": {
"surname": "Morris",
"firstName": "James",
"dateOfBirth": "1983-04-19",
"titleCode": "Mr",
"middleName": "P",
"genderCode": "male"
}
}
}
The originator asked
Is there any method to check if a specific node is present using katalon inbuild method, something like
WS.verifyNodePresent(response, 'body.user.firstName', true)
Indeed, Katalon Studio does not support WS.verifyNodePresent keyword.
The originator has got no answer from the Katalon forum. So, let me ask the same question again. Is there any way to test if a key is present in a JSON object?
Solution proposed
Recenty I learned Jayway JsonPath. I found that Jayway JsonPath can solve the problem nicely. So I created a sample code and will show it here.
Description
The problem reproduced
See Test Cases/TC_by_WSkeywords. This code reproduces the problem that the original poster presented.
The solution using Jayway JsonPath
See Test Cases/TC_by_JaywayJsonPath. Let me quote the source here for your reference:
import java.nio.file.Files
import java.nio.file.Path
import java.nio.file.Paths
import com.jayway.jsonpath.DocumentContext
import com.jayway.jsonpath.JsonPath
import com.kms.katalon.core.configuration.RunConfiguration
import com.kms.katalon.core.util.KeywordUtil
import com.kms.katalon.core.webservice.keyword.WSBuiltInKeywords as WS
Path projectDir = Paths.get(RunConfiguration.getProjectDir())
Path dataFile = projectDir.resolve("./data.json")
String dataText = Files.readString(dataFile)
DocumentContext dc = JsonPath.parse(dataText)
def result = (String)dc.read("\$.body.user.firstName");
if (result != "James") {
KeywordUtil. markFailed("\$.body.user.firstName is ${result}, not James")
}
result = (Integer)dc.read("\$.body.user.length()");
if (result != 6) {
KeywordUtil.markFailed("\$.body.user.length() is ${result}, not 6")
}
def keySet = (Set)dc.read("\$.body.user.keys()")
println "\$.body.user.keys(): ${keySet}"
if (!keySet.contains("firstName")) {
KeywordUtil.markFailed("\$.body.user.keys() ${keySet} does not contain firstName")
}
keySet = (Set)dc.read("\$.body.user.keys()")
if (!keySet.contains("nickName")) {
KeywordUtil.markWarning("\$.body.user.keys() ${keySet} does not contain nickName but it doesnt matter much")
}
When I ran this, I got the following output in the console.
2024-08-02 18:51:03.216 INFO c.k.katalon.core.main.TestCaseExecutor - --------------------
2024-08-02 18:51:03.231 INFO c.k.katalon.core.main.TestCaseExecutor - START Test Cases/TC_by_JaywayJsonPath
$.body.user.keys(): [surname, firstName, dateOfBirth, titleCode, middleName, genderCode]
2024-08-02 18:51:05.547 WARN com.kms.katalon.core.util.KeywordUtil - $.body.user.keys() [surname, firstName, dateOfBirth, titleCode, middleName, genderCode] does not contain nickName but it doesnt matter much
2024-08-02 18:51:05.596 INFO c.k.katalon.core.main.TestCaseExecutor - END Test Cases/TC_by_JaywayJsonPath
Please note that here I utilized the keys() function of Jayway JsonPath, which returns a Set of keys of a specified JSON object, as follows:
$.body.user.keys() [surname, firstName, dateOfBirth, titleCode, middleName, genderCode]
The keys() function helps solving a lot of issues regarding verifying JSON. The keys() function is a unique feature of Jayway JsonPath in Java. Other implementation of JsonPath in JavaScript and Python do not have it.
How to import the required dependencies
Katalon Studio does not bundle the jar of Jayway JsonPath. Therefore you need to import the necessary external dependencies yourself. Katalon’s documentation How to resolve external dependencyes using Gradle
See the build.gradle that I wrote.
Conclusion
Katalon Studio provides a set of WS keywords that deal with JSON response as Web Service, for example WS.verifyELementPropertyValue. In my humble opinion, the coverage is very limitted. I do not expect the product’s feature for JSON verification will be expanded in future. However, Jayway JsonPath is available to us. I believe it is well worth spending your time to learn.