Silverlight requests

Silverlight is a technology from Microsoft for developing rich Internet applications (RIA).

Silverlight applications use the Microsoft WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) Framework.

The HTTP requests sent by the Silverlight client to the server often contain binary data that you cannot read. NeoLoad converts these messages into XML, to make designing scenarios easy.

The Silverlight module does not require any configuring and its use is transparent for the user.

Note: To be able to handle Silverlight requests, you will need to purchase the optional Silverlight module. This module is included in the demo version of NeoLoad.

Recording

The following diagram shows how the Silverlight module functions during recording:

The binary data exchanged between the client and server transit through the recording proxy. It is during this transit that the Silverlight module analyzes and decodes the requests. Once they have been converted into XML, the requests are inserted in the project.

Runtime

The following diagram shows how the Silverlight module functions during test runtime:

The variables in the XML request are calculated and the module engine converts the XML into binary data, which is then sent to the server. The binary response received is converted into XML, after which the validations and Variable Extractors in the played request are executed.

Silverlight support

NeoLoad supports the recording and runtime playing of Silverlight requests within the following scope:

  • Only HTTP requests are supported;

  • The request and/or response content is in text format, or;

  • The request and/or response content is in binary format and is encoded using the standard NBFX or NBFS protocols. These protocols are identified in HTTP requests by checking the Content-type HTTP header, which should contain the value application/msbin1 or application/soap+msbin1.

  • SOAP HTTP requests sending text or binary Silverlight content are supported.

Note: To be able to handle SOAP requests sending binary Silverlight content, you will need to purchase the optional SOAP and Silverlight modules. These modules are included in the demo version of NeoLoad.

Binary-format Silverlight requests are automatically converted into XML. For these requests, NeoLoad allows:

  • modifying the request parameters by injecting NeoLoad variables,

  • extracting content from a response,

  • setting response validations.

Identifiers handled by NeoLoad

The Silverlight Framework contains dynamic parameter definitions that enable certain dynamic values to be automatically extracted and replaced in a Silverlight recording.

For more information about Frameworks and dynamic parameters, see Frameworks.