Execute Request Items

After you have added request items to the project, you can execute them and review results. You have several options to execute request items:

• Executing all selected request items; use menu option Run/Execute Selected Items or press Ctrl+F5.
• Executing all project request items; use menu option Run/Execute All Items or press Ctrl+Shift+F5.
• Executing open request item only; if particular request item is open for editing and you want to execute only this item, click its corresponding action button and select option Execute or press F5.
• Executing items from execution group (only available in Professional Edition); if you have created execution groups, you can execute only particular execution group and all request items that are part of the execution group will be executed. To execute particular group, use menu option Run/Execute Group or press Ctrl+(group_number). Group numbers are assigned automatically according to the order set for each execution group.

Manage parameter values before the execution

Parameters defined as manually provided single value parameters can be temporarily changed before the execution. For more information, see the corresponding topic.

Authentication data

In execution window you can specify authentication data that should be included with the execution. If you have specified authentication data in project properties, it will be set and used automatically. You can, however, change this default authentication data here and it will be used for all further executions. Changing authentication data in execution window does not affect authentication data specified in project properties.

Execution order when running multiple request items

When executing multiple request items in the main window, you can select the order in which you want to execute them. The following options are available:

• Current sort order used in the main window; this will always execute selected request items in the order in which they are currently displayed in the main window.
• Manually set execution order value; this will always execute selected request items in the fixed execution order value set for each request item. This option guarantees that selected request items will always execute in the same order unaffected by the current sort order used in the main window. See the corresponding topic on how to manually set execution order value.

This option can be set in the application options window.

Start executing immediately after the execution window is opened

Execution of the selected request items is performed in the special execution window where you have the option to start the execution, stop the execution, view results, etc. If this option is turned on, the execution of the request items will start immediately after the execution window is opened. If turned off, you will have to start execution manually inside the execution window. This option can be set in the application options window.

Execution window commands

The execution window contains a special execution toolbar. The following commands might require further explanation:

• Specify authentication data; this command can be used to specify authentication data if you are executing against secured internet resources. If you would like to include authentication data with the requests, click Authentication button and specify authentication data. The following options are available:
  • Do not include authentication data.
  • Use default credentials; Windows credentials of the user running the application will be used.
  • Use the following credentials; credentials specified manually will be used.
  Note that authentication data can also be specified in project properties and will be automatically used when you will execute request items contained in the project. In such a case, you won't have to specify authentication data manually in the execution window.
• Select active global URL from project values; with this command you can select active global URL from the list of global URL values specified in project properties (General tab). During the execution, all request items with the relative URL will use active global URL to determine actual execution URL. Type of the URL can be set in request item properties (General tab). See the General Project Data topic for more information.
• Select active global query string from project values; with this command you can select active global query string from the list of global query string values specified in project properties (General tab). During the execution, all request items with Append global query string setting turned on will append active global query string to the execution URL. Append global query string setting can be set in request item properties (General tab). See General Project Data topic for more information.
• Execution timeout and delay; with this command you can set execution timeout and delay between two consecutive requests for the current session. Alternatively, both values can be permanently set in project properties. See General Project Data topic for more information.
• Save execution data of selected request items to a file (only available in Professional Edition); with this command you can export execution data to HttpMaster execution file (hmex extension) which can later be reopened in HttpMaster. Multiple request items can be selected and exported to the same file. To open stored hmex file in HttpMaster, use menu option Open Execution File available in the main HttpMaster window.
• Create PDF report with execution data of selected request items; with this command you can export execution data to PDF. Multiple request items can be selected and exported to the same file. If you would like to export only single execution to PDF, open execution details of the request item, select desired execution in the list and use export option available in the execution data toolbar.
• Export execution results of selected request items to XML or JSON; with this command you can export execution results to XML or JSON. Note that exported data does not contain complete execution data, but only information about particular execution outcome (succeeded/failed). For more information on data model used for the export, check corresponding help topic.
• Show previous 1000 requests; this command can be used for paging requests when request item has generated more than 1000 requests (hidden if less than 1000 requests were generated).
• Show next 1000 requests; this command can be used for paging requests when request item has generated more than 1000 requests (hidden if less than 1000 requests were generated).

Stopping or pausing current execution

The execution of request items will continue running until all requests are completed and will not stop even if the particular request is considered unsuccessful (for example, the host name cannot be resolved or specific validation has failed). This is useful if you want to test particular requests that you know will fail and you want to verify this. The execution of requests will be stopped only in the following cases:

• Execution is stopped by the user.
• Application error not handled by the execution engine occurs (for example, there are not enough system resources available to continue running).

You can also pause and/or resume execution at any time. To pause execution, click start button while the execution is running; to resume execution, click start button while the execution is paused.

Executing large number of requests

Execution engine stores request and response data in a special temporary file in the applications execution folder (configurable in application options). In such a way, the memory pressure is greatly reduced and it is possible to execute a lot of requests during one execution session without consuming a lot of memory. However, keep in mind that if a very large number of requests is executed and request/response data is relatively big, the application could consume a lot of disk space. These temporary files are deleted automatically by the application after they are no longer needed. In project properties you can also specify not to monitor and store execution data. This will perform executions as usual, but won't create any output files and will thus run much faster, but the execution data wont be available for review.

Executing request item multiple times with a single click

By default, each selected request item is executed only once inside the execution window. You could execute particular request item again by repeating the same execution process multiple times, but this might be time consuming. To change execution count of the request item, use the following procedure:

• Right click request item and select menu option Change Item Execution Count or press Ctrl+H.
• In the window that is shown, select option Manually set execution count to the following value.
• Specify execution count value and click OK button.
• Execute request item; it will be executed multiple times according to its execution count. When execution will complete, you will be able to see details of every request item execution.

See Manage Execution Count topic for more information about the execution count.

View execution results

See View Execution Results topic for more information about execution results.