Multilingual automation testing with enumerations

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Post summary: Solution for automated testing of multilingual sites by using string values in all supported languages for enumerations.

In efficiently use of enumerations with string values in C# post I’ve described how you can add text to an enumeration element and then use it. Current post is elaboration with code samples for testing multilingual applications.

The challenge

Multilingual automation is always a challenge. If you use text to locate elements or verify condition then trying to run a test with different language will fail. Enumerations with language dependent string values is a pretty good solution. How to do it is described below.

Define attribute

StringValue class is extending System.Attribute. It has two properties for text and language. It should have AllowMultiple = true in order to be applied as many times as many languages you have.

namespace System
{
	[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Field, AllowMultiple = true)]
	public class StringValue : Attribute
	{
		public string Value { get; private set; }
		public string Lang { get; private set; }

		public StringValue(string lang, string value)
		{
			Lang = lang;
			Value = value;
		}
	}
}

Read attribute

With reflection read all StringValue attributes. Iterate them and return the one that matches language given as parameter.

using System.Reflection;

namespace System
{
	public static class ExtensionMethods
	{
		public static string GetStringValue(this Enum value, string lang)
		{
			string stringValue = value.ToString();
			Type type = value.GetType();
			FieldInfo fieldInfo = type.GetField(value.ToString());
			StringValue[] attrs = fieldInfo.
				GetCustomAttributes(typeof(StringValue), false) as StringValue[];
			foreach (StringValue attr in attrs)
			{
				if (attr.Lang == lang)
				{
					return attr.Value;
				}
			}
			return stringValue;
		}
	}
}

Apply to enumerations

All supported languages can be defined as string constants. It will be pretty cool if can define an enumeration with languages and pass it in the StringValue constructor as a language but it is not possible as it is not a compile-time constant.

public class Constants
{
	public const string LangEn = "en";
	public const string LangFr = "fr";
	public const string LangDe = "de";
}

public enum Messages
{
	[StringValue(Constants.LangEn, "Problem occured, try again later")]
	[StringValue(Constants.LangFr, "Problème survenu, réessayer plus tard")]
	[StringValue(Constants.LangDe, "Problem aufgetreten, " +
		"versuchen Sie es später erneut")]
	ProblemOccured,
	[StringValue(Constants.LangEn, "Successfully done")]
	[StringValue(Constants.LangFr, "Fait avec succès")]
	[StringValue(Constants.LangDe, "Erfolgreich durchgeführt")]
	Success
}

Use in code

Somewhere at a top level of your tests, you should have property or field which most likely will be read from conflagration and will define for which locale is the current test run.

string lang = Constants.LangFr;

This is then used to read correct text value for given enumeration element.

Assert.AreEqual(Messages.ProblemOccured.GetStringValue(lang), 
	App.MessageBox.GetText());

Conclusion

Multilingual testing is a challenge. Be smart and use all tricks you might get. In this post, I’ve revealed pretty good trick to do the automation. Challenge with this approach will be initially set up of enumerations with all the translations.

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