bcquality/microsoft/knowledge/testing/use-testpage-editable-to-verify-field-editability.md
Michael Dieringer 186691f815
3 AL/BC patterns from CURABIS's internal automated-testing training material (#158)
* Add 3 more AL/BC patterns from CURABIS Academy testing course material

Third batch from CURABIS ApS: item-ledger-entry document-no lookup after Ship-and-Invoice posting, TestPage.Visible()/.Enabled() as the mechanism for verifying field UI state, and LibraryUtility.GenerateGUID() for collision-free test fixture values.

* Address Jesper Schulz-Wedde's review on PR #158

- use-generateguid-for-unique-test-fixture-values.md: GenerateGUID()
  is a Code[10] number-series value, not a real GUID; truncating it
  with CopyStr for a shorter field cuts off the changing digits. Point
  to GenerateRandomCode/GenerateRandomCodeWithLength/GenerateRandomXMLText
  instead, which verify uniqueness against the actual table.
- Split use-testpage-visible-enabled-to-verify-field-ui-state.md: drop
  its editability claim (the sample opens with OpenView() and asserts
  Enabled(), which verifies enabled state, not editability — Editable()
  and Enabled() are distinct TestField methods). New companion article
  use-testpage-editable-to-verify-field-editability.md covers Editable()
  with OpenEdit() specifically.
- Wire GenerateGUID/CopyStr and TestPage Visible/Enabled/Editable cues
  into al-testing-review.md, and the Item Ledger Entry/Last Shipping No.
  posting cue into al-data-modeling-review.md.

The Item Ledger Entry article itself was independently verified against
current BCApps source and needs no changes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Address second round of Jesper Schulz-Wedde's review on PR #158

- use-generateguid-for-unique-test-fixture-values.md/.good.al: documented
  each LibraryUtility helper's actual behavior, verified against
  LibraryUtility.Codeunit.al. GenerateRandomCode opens the target table as
  a temporary RecordRef, so despite taking TableNo it never checks real
  data. GenerateRandomXMLText performs no table lookup at all. Only
  GenerateRandomCodeWithLength/GenerateRandomCode20 (capped at Code[10]/
  Code[20]) genuinely verify against the real table. Fixture switched to
  GenerateRandomCodeWithLength where the comment claims verified
  uniqueness.
- al-testing-review.md: rewired the cue to catch the actual anti-pattern
  (hardcoded literals, hand-built uniqueness, short-field GUID truncation)
  instead of only matching the compliant GenerateGUID()+CopyStr shape;
  broadened tokens to include TestPage, Library - Utility, and
  .Visible()/.Enabled()/.Editable().
- al-data-modeling-review.md: restricted the Item Ledger Entry
  Last-Shipping-No. cue to sales combined posting; purchase combined
  posting is Receive+Invoice and uses different fields entirely.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Fix remaining correctness issues from Jesper's 2026-09-15 re-review

- use-generateguid-for-unique-test-fixture-values.md: narrowed the
  collision rule to primary-key/unique-lookup fields - an ordinary
  descriptive field carries no uniqueness constraint, so a hardcoded
  or deterministic value there isn't the anti-pattern (the article and
  its al-testing-review.md worklist cue both said "primary-key or
  descriptive field"). Also corrected GenerateRandomCode: it opens its
  target table as a temporary RecordRef that starts and stays empty,
  so its repeat/until loop always exits after one iteration and never
  retries even within a single test run - the "non-colliding within a
  test run" claim was false. It's the rightmost N characters of
  GenerateGUID()'s sequential series, so a short field's value cycles
  (Code[1] repeats every 10 calls, Code[2] every 100). Verified against
  LibraryUtility.Codeunit.al in the BCApps reference clone.
- item-ledger-entry-document-no-follows-last-shipping-no: both
  fixtures called FindSet() without consuming its optional Boolean,
  which raises a runtime error on an empty result set - the opposite
  of the article's own claimed "silently matches zero rows, no error"
  behavior. Wrapped in `if ... then;` per the existing
  guard-database-reads.good.al idiom.
- al-data-modeling-review.md: widened both not-applicable scope
  clauses (intro and outcome) to include dimension wiring, posting-
  routine structure, and Item Ledger Entry document-number lookups -
  the leaf declared itself not-applicable outside setup/master/key/
  numbering/block/audit surfaces despite having a targeted cue for
  this PR's own new article.
- Converted this PR's 8 plain-backtick "See sample: `x.good.al`."
  references (across all 4 new articles) to the READ-convention
  markdown-link form required by Knowledge-Retrieval.ps1.

Rebased onto upstream/main (one conflict in al-data-modeling-review.md
intro wording, merged).

* Stop routing GenerateRandomCode20 as compliant for shorter fields

al-testing-review.md's cue presented GenerateRandomCodeWithLength and
GenerateRandomCode20 as interchangeable options for "a shorter field
needing real verified uniqueness." They aren't: verified against
LibraryUtility.Codeunit.al, GenerateRandomCode20 truncates
GenerateGUID()'s sequential value down to the target field's length by
keeping the leftmost (slowest-changing) characters via PadStr, so its
retry loop against a field shorter than 20 can churn through the same
truncated prefix for a long time. GenerateRandomCodeWithLength has no
such problem (it generates exactly the requested length of random
text). The knowledge article itself already scoped GenerateRandomCode20
to Code[20] correctly - only the skill cue needed narrowing to match.

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-29 12:49:11 +02:00

1.4 KiB

bc-version domain keywords technologies countries application-area
all
testing
testpage
editable
openedit
ui-state
field-verification
al
w1
all

Verify field editability with TestPage.Editable(), opened in edit mode

Description

Whether a field can actually be changed is a distinct state from whether it is shown or enabled — Editable() and Enabled() are separate TestField functions. Verifying editability also requires opening the TestPage with OpenEdit(), not OpenView(): OpenView() opens the page in view mode, so it does not exercise the field's own conditional editability logic the way an actual edit-mode session does.

Best Practice

Open the TestPage with OpenEdit(), navigate to the relevant record, then assert against TestPageField.Editable() to verify whether the field can be changed under the given precondition.

See sample: use-testpage-editable-to-verify-field-editability.good.al.

Anti Pattern

Asserting Enabled() (or checking nothing at all) when the actual claim is about editability, or opening the page with OpenView() when the field's editability depends on business logic that only applies in edit mode.

See sample: use-testpage-editable-to-verify-field-editability.bad.al.