Automated Testing of emails can be a bit daunting as the majority of email providers are not built for testing purposes.
In the past, people have used Gmail and mailinator to create email addresses, send and read emails but they tend to have limitations and can block a user.
There is a web application qamail.ala.se which is very lightweight and is specifically built for testing purposes.
You can create email accounts (email addresses), list emails for an account, read an email and delete emails.
One of the great things about this is that you can use both the UI and/or its API which comes very handy for UI and API automated testing. For example, you can either use Selenium WebDriver or Rest-Assured or Karate to fetch emails.
In this page, I list examples of how to work with the API of the qamail application. The given examples are in Karate, but equally any API testing library can be used.
Create Session
#create-session-key.feature
Feature: Create a session key to use for email fetching
Background:
* def host = 'http://qamail.ala.se'
* configure followRedirects = false
Scenario: test session creation
Given url host
When method get
* def redirect_address = responseHeaders['Location'][0]
Given url redirect_address
When method get
* string cookies = responseHeaders['Set-Cookie']
* string session_cookie = Java.type('com.testingexcellence.StringUtil').getCookieValue(cookies, 'session_key')
The above feature file calls a Java method to parse the cookies and extract the session_key cookie
public static String getCookieValue(String cookieString, String cookieKey) {
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\w+)=\"*((?<=\")[^\"]+(?=\")|([^\\s]+))\"*");
Matcher m = p.matcher(cookieString);
String cookieValue = "";
while(m.find()){
if(m.group(1).contains(cookieKey)) {
cookieValue = m.group(2);
}
}
return cookieValue.replaceAll(";", "");
}
Once we obtain a session key, we can use it for various operations
Create MailBox
#create-mailbox.feature
Feature: create mailbox feature
Background:
* def create_session = callonce read('create-session-key.feature')
* def session = create_session.session_cookie
* def host = create_session.host
Scenario: Create a mailbox
* def create_mailbox_path = '/api/create_mailbox'
Given url host + create_mailbox_path + '?session_key=' + session
And request ''
When method PUT
Then status 200
* def email_address = get response.mailbox.address
Response
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <mailbox> <address>zxe45oy@qamail.ala.se</address> </mailbox>
List Email Boxes
#list-mailboxes.feature
Feature: list mailboxes
Background:
* def create_session = callonce read('create-session-key.feature')
* def session = create_session.session_cookie
* def host = create_session.host
Scenario: list mailoxes
* def list_mailboxes_path = '/api/list_mailboxes'
* def endpoint = host + list_mailboxes_path + '?session_key=' + session
Given url endpoint
When method GET
Then status 200
* def email_address = get response.session.mailbox.address
Response
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <session> <session_key>8ZFmjSmdI6tf496dGrsK5sN6</session_key> <mailbox> <address>t971kzb@qamail.ala.se</address> </mailbox> </session>
List Emails for an Email Address
N.B: (only works when you send an email to the address) Values hardcoded for demo
#show-emails.feature
Feature: show emails for an email address
Background:
* def result = call read('list-mailboxes.feature')
* def email_address = result.email_address
* def session = result.response.session.session_key
* def host = result.host
Scenario: show emails for a specific email address
* def show_emails_path = '/api/show_mailbox_content'
* def session = 'LFB2Ii0GT4NuZB7nqLljNT0W'
* def email_address = 'h0qr0xd@qamail.ala.se'
Given url host + show_emails_path + '?session_key=' + session + '&address=' + email_address
When method GET
Then status 200
* def email_id = get response.mailbox.letter.id
* def subject = get response.mailbox.letter.subject
* def from = get response.mailbox.letter.from
* def date = response.mailbox.letter.date
Response
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <mailbox> <address>h0qr0xd@qamail.ala.se</address> <letter> <id>38989</id> <subject>Test mail</subject> <from>test@test.com</from> <date>2017-11-27 18:07:52 UTC</date> </letter> </mailbox>
Show Email Content for a Specific Email
N.B: (only works when you send an email to the address) Values hardcoded for demo
#read-email.feature
Feature: read an email
Background:
* def result = call read('show-emails.feature')
* def email_address = result.email_address
* def session = result.session
* def host = result.host
* def letter_id = result.letter_id
Scenario: show emails for a specific email address
* def show_email_content_path = '/api/show_rendered_letter'
* def session = 'LFB2Ii0GT4NuZB7nqLljNT0W'
* def email_address = 'h0qr0xd@qamail.ala.se'
* def letter_id = 38989
Given url host + show_email_content_path + '?session_key=' + session + '&address=' + email_address + '&letter_id=' + letter_id
When method GET
Then status 200
Response
The response is a dump of the body of an email. You have to use Regexp to extract what you want from the text of the email.