With the help of an awesome developer friend, we’ve created a new testing tool!!
The tool is a “Test Data Generator”.
It allows for the quick creation of sample test data to paste into an input field.
You can download the tool from my LinkedIn Box account here: Dan’s LinkedIn Box
Any feedback about the tool, be it a bug or enhancement (or even to let me know how useful the tool is for you), is welcome and would be greatly appreciated!
Some more info about the tool:
Using the tool:
The program itself looks like the screenshot below:
The idea is that you:
- Specify a “Max Length” of characters (up to 100K of characters),
- Specify the “Character Set” (options are: Numeric, Alpha, Alpha-numeric, ASCII127 or ASCII255),
- Specify if you want to include whitespace and have the characters randomized (by ticking the boxes).
- Then click on the “Generate Data” button and your data (meeting your specified settings) is copied to the clipboard, ready for you to paste.
There are also “SQL Injection” and “XSS” test data options available, which disable the text options and copy a simple SQL script or simple JavaScript command to the clipboard when the “Generate Data” button is clicked.
NOTE: The SQL and XSS features are very basic at the moment, but there are plans to expand these features to offer a selection of SQL and JavaScript options in the future.
Installation:
Setup is very easy to do. Just follow the steps below.
1) Unzip the file
2) Double click on the “TestDataGenerator.exe” file to run the tool – no installation required.
NOTE: You need to keep the .dll file in the same file location as the .exe file for the program to work. I advise that you move the files to within the “Program Files” folder and simply create a shortcut to the “TestDataGenerator.exe” file for your desktop.
Known Issues:
1) If 30 or more digits are entered into the “Max Length” field, The value defaults back to be the previously set value, rather than the max allowable value of “100,000”. (i.e. if the field is set to be “10” and you enter “1234567890123456789012345678901” (31 characters), then the field defaults back to “10” rather than “100000”).
– Thanks to @stephenjanaway for pointing this one out!
Dan Ashby 
I think this can be useful to many.
But you should probably remove the “The string has been copied to the clipboard, ready to paste” dialog, it is not something you want to see more than once.
Accelerator, or access key, at least for “Generate Data” button would make it faster to use.
And since it is a tool for testers, be prepared for comments that it is possible to manually change the content of the “Character Set” edit box.
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Thanks for the feedback Rikard!
Your points are noted – I’ll add them to the list for the next update.
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As an additional feature, you might like to consider an idea from James Bach and Danny Faught’s tool Perlclip: counterstrings. A counterstring is a string that tells you about its own length. Example:
*3*5*7*9*12*15*18*…
You can see that each * has a number to its left. That number represents the position of that * in the string. So, you want to see how many characters an input field can handle? Paste in a counterstring, and see where it truncates. There are other potential uses for counterstrings, but that’s the most common kind of application for the idea.
Cheers,
—Michael B.
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Thanks for the feedback Michael.
Thats a good idea!
I’ll look into adding a “Counterstring” option under the “Character Set” select list for the next release as it would definitely be useful.
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great tool. thanks for sharing it.
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