bcquality/microsoft/knowledge/testing/use-testpage-visible-enabled-to-verify-field-ui-state.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

1.6 KiB

bc-version domain keywords technologies countries application-area
all
testing
testpage
visible
enabled
ui-state
headless-test
field-verification
al
w1
all

Verify field visibility and enabled state with TestPage.Visible()/.Enabled()

Description

A UI test codeunit does not need to inspect table or page properties indirectly to confirm a field is shown or enabled under given conditions. The TestPage object exposes a Visible() and an Enabled() function on each field, reflecting the page's actual rendered state, callable directly from a [Test] procedure. Enabled() and Editable() are distinct states — this article covers visibility/enabled state specifically; see use-testpage-editable-to-verify-field-editability.md for verifying whether a field can actually be changed.

Best Practice

Open the TestPage, navigate to the relevant record if needed, then assert against TestPageField.Visible() and TestPageField.Enabled() to verify the field's shown/enabled state, rather than checking an unrelated table/page property or skipping the check.

See sample: use-testpage-visible-enabled-to-verify-field-ui-state.good.al.

Anti Pattern

A test that opens the TestPage but never asserts against Visible()/Enabled() on the field in question — confirming only that the page opens, not that the field behaves as expected.

See sample: use-testpage-visible-enabled-to-verify-field-ui-state.bad.al.