randomaction

RandomAction action

Randomly select other actions to perform. This meta-action can be used as a starting point for your testing efforts, to simplify script authoring or to add background load.

randomaction accepts a list of action types between which to randomize. An execution of randomaction executes one or more of the listed actions (as determined by the iterations parameter), randomly chosen by a weighted probability. If nothing else is specified, each action has a default random mode that is used. An override is done by specifying one or more parameters of the original action.

Each action executed by randomaction is followed by a customizable thinktime.

Note: The recommended way to use this action is to prepend it with an openapp and a changesheet action as this ensures that a sheet is always in context.

• actions: List of actions from which to randomly pick an action to execute. Each item has a number of possible parameters.
  • type: Type of action
    • thinktime: See the thinktime action.
    • sheetobjectselection: Make random selections within objects visible on the current sheet. See the select action.
    • changesheet: See the changesheet action.
    • clearall: See the clearall action.
  • weight: The probabilistic weight of the action, specified as an integer. This number is proportional to the likelihood of the specified action, and is used as a weight in a uniform random selection.
  • overrides: (optional) Static overrides to the action. The overrides can include any or all of the settings from the original action, as determined by the type field. If nothing is specified, the default values are used.
• thinktimesettings: Settings for the thinktime action, which is automatically inserted after every randomized action.
  • type: Type of think time
    • static: Static think time, defined by delay.
    • uniform: Random think time with uniform distribution, defined by mean and dev.
  • delay: Delay (seconds), used with type static.
  • mean: Mean (seconds), used with type uniform.
  • dev: Deviation (seconds) from mean value, used with type uniform.
• iterations: Number of random actions to perform.

Random action defaults

The following default values are used for the different actions:

• thinktime: Mirrors the configuration of thinktimesettings
• sheetobjectselection:

{
     "settings": 
     {
         "id": <UNIFORMLY RANDOMIZED>,
         "type": "RandomFromAll",
         "min": 1,
         "max": 2,
         "accept": true
     }
}

• changesheet:

{
     "settings": 
     {
         "id": <UNIFORMLY RANDOMIZED>
     }
}

• clearall:

{
     "settings": 
     {
     }
}

Examples

Generating a background load by executing 5 random actions

{
    "action": "RandomAction",
    "settings": {
        "iterations": 5,
        "actions": [
            {
                "type": "thinktime",
                "weight": 1
            },
            {
                "type": "sheetobjectselection",
                "weight": 3
            },
            {
                "type": "changesheet",
                "weight": 5
            },
            {
                "type": "clearall",
                "weight": 1
            }
        ],
        "thinktimesettings": {
            "type": "uniform",
            "mean": 10,
            "dev": 5
        }
    }
}

Making random selections from excluded values

{
    "action": "RandomAction",
    "settings": {
        "iterations": 1,
        "actions": [
            {
                "type": "sheetobjectselection",
                "weight": 1,
                "overrides": {
                  "type": "RandomFromExcluded",
                  "min": 1,
                  "max": 5
                }
            }
        ],
        "thinktimesettings": {
            "type": "static",
            "delay": 1
        }
    }
}