I do use Lux, and I am expanding my use of it. Some of my custom actions (particular the family that implements vsdbcmd.exe database deploy) have complex immediate custom action components (e.g., unpacking the deployment engine to a temporary location, building an appropriate command line, and setting up a deferred action to clean up the mess). Lux has been VERY helpful in validating the these actions.
By contrast, the deferred actions are purposefully very simple (e.g., call vsdbcmd.exe with a previously-built command line). And that, I believe, is the greatest strength of Lux--it encourages a design philosophy where the deferred custom actions are very linear and the logic resides nearly entirely in the immediate actions. -- John Merryweather Cooper Build & Install Engineer - ESA Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.(r) Shawnee Mission, KS 66227 Office: 913-341-3434 x791011 jocoo...@jackhenry.com www.jackhenry.com -----Original Message----- From: Steven Bone [mailto:sb...@pobox.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 7:30 AM To: General discussion for Windows Installer XML toolset. Cc: kirann.he...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Lux - Custom action testing framework- Advantages? Kiran - you privately sent me your initial post (not specifying you cross-posted to the WiX-users list. I will reply here publicly and in context with your follow-up. I personally never have used Lux, as it did not exist when I last developed a Custom Action of any test-worthy significance (I don't do much installer work anymore, but when I do usually the WiX set has what I need). The value of Lux is certainly there, otherwise Rob and crew would not have made it! *The most difficult part of a custom action to test is the immediate part*, where you likely read the MSI tables or custom tables and properties and pack all the data you need into a single property. It is comparatively simpler to test the deferred/rollback/commit actions using traditional unit testing methodologies because their interaction with the MSI APIs are fairly limited (getting the CustomActionData and MsiFormatRecord/MsiProcessMessage is almost all they can do). If you write your custom actions with the above fact in mind, testing (and even debugging via a simple harness) deferred/rollback/commit actions is quite simple. In your deferred/rollback/commit actions you write some safe boilerplate code common to ALL your actions that interact with the MSI API to get the value of CustomActionData (and mode/language as necessary) and pass that data off as parameters to another function/entry point in your Custom Action dll. Any calls you would make for progress/logging to MsiFormatRecord/MsiProcessMessage would be conditioned on having a non-null MSIHANDLE hInstall (which is passed in as NULL in you unit tests/debugging harness). Now you can simply test that non-MSI entry point with some known good packed data and use your traditional unit tests to validate those results. In a world without Lux, testing the immediate action that reads normal/custom tables and properties and creates the packed data structure really sucks. Pre-Lux, I had a test harness script that used a manually created MSI and stuffed a (specially compiled) CustomAction dll into the binary table and installed the MSI. The MSI ran the immediate action and (the normally ifdefed code) wrote the packed data to a file. The test harness was responsible for making sure the output file was deleted, stuffed the dll into the msi, ran the test MSI, compared it with the expected results, then performed cleanup by uninstalling the test msi (or running msizap based on its failure state), and deleting the output file. That was a royal pain in the ass. Lux is much better and is designed to replace that strange ugly test harness. See the note in the Lux documentation regarding the Directory properties - this happened to be a source of pain for my simple testing harness when executing it on (some) different machines. So yes, use Lux, but also test using traditional methods to hit your deferred/rollback/commit actions. Just be sure to impersonate the appropriate security context when executing your traditional tests on your deferred/rollback/commit actions. Can you sell it to management? Like any other product you are trying to sell, you need to be able to enumerate your pain points and show how investing in unit testing can alleviate them. If your immediate actions are drop dead simple (all but a handful of mine are), perhaps you don't even need Lux, and you should focus on the deferred/rollback/commit actions. Unit testing is only as good as the reliability of your test platform and the data you throw at it. If nothing else, you can certainly build test sets with Lux much easier than without, and if you use it properly (write failing unit tests for cases you have seen that fail before fixing the bug), you certainly can assure yourself that regressions are unlikely. Steve On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 5:26 AM, kirannhegde <kirann.he...@gmail.com> wrote: > *Getting the infrastructure in place to test custom actions is pretty > tricky (thus Lux exists).* > > Could you please elaborate on this? > > If i have to sell this idea to my management, what are the points to > make out in favour of Lux? > > Thanks, > Kiran Hegde > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. 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