Test Documentation

Writing test documentation for XDS Toolkit

The documentation style documented here is meant to coordinate with the new Conformance Test Tool.

Test structure

A test is made up of sections which contain one or more steps. The following rules apply:

A step corresponds to a single transaction.
A section contains 1 or more steps.
A section can be run independently. When run, it executes all its steps in order specified.
The common reason to pack two steps into a section is to make sure they are always executed together. An example is a Patient Identity Feed transaction followed by a Register Document transaction. Every time you register this document (in our example scenario) you want to assure it is given a new/unique Patient ID. To ensure this the two transactions are packed into one section (each transaction in its own step).
There are older tests where independent operations are packed into steps in a section. This is discouraged.
In a multi-section test, the sections can be run independently, unless...
Sections of a test can have dependencies with one section needing the output of a previous section. Actually it is the steps that have dependencies but given the one step per section rule...
Sections run in a proscribed order.
When a test is run, all of it sections are run in order.

Tests and steps have documentation. Sections are just groups of steps so they have no documentation.