A Data Provider's parameters are defined in a file called form.xml. The following is an example of form.xml for a Data Provider extending the GenericPerl framework:

CustomDP parameters

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tags baseName="GenericPerl" needSources="true" image="CustomDP.png" projectStatusOnFailure="ERROR">
	<tag type="multipleChoice" displayType="checkbox" optionTitle=" " key="tests">
		<value key="ux" option="usability" />
		<value key="it" option="integration" />
		<value key="ut" option="unit" />
	</tag>
	<tag type="booleanChoice" key="ignore_missing_sources" defaultValue="false" />
	<tag type="text" key="input_file" defaultValue="myFile.xml" changeable="false" />
	<tag type="multipleChoice" key="old_results" style="margin-left:10px" displayType="radioButton" defaultValue="Exclude">
		<value key="Exclude" />
		<value key="Include" />
	</tag>
	<tag type="text" key="java_path" defaultValue="/usr/bin/java" hide="true" />
	<tag type="password" required="true" key="password" />
</tags>

The tags element accepts the following attributes:

Each tag element is a Data Provider option and allows the following attributes:

In order to display your Data Provider parameters in different languages in the web UI, yout Data Provider's form.xml does not contain any hard-coded strings. Instead, Squore uses each parameter's key attribute to dynamically retrieve a translation from a form_xx.properties file located next to form.xml.

When you create a Data Provider, it is mandatory to include at least an English version of the strings in a file called form_en.properties. You are free to add other languages as needed. Here is a sample .properties for for the CustomDP you created in the previous section:

FORM.GENERAL.NAME  = CustomDP
FORM.DASHBOARD.NAME  = Test Status
FORM.GENERAL.DESCR = CustomDP imports test results for my project
FORM.GENERAL.URL   = http://example.com/CustomDP

TAG.tests.NAME  = Test Types
TAG.tests.DESCR = Check the boxes next to the types of test results contained in the results

TAG.ignore_missing_sources.NAME = Ignore Missing Sources

TAG.input_file.NAME = Test Results
TAG.input_file.DESCR = Specify the absolute path to the file containing the test results

TAG.old_results.NAME = Old Test Results
TAG.old_results.DESCR = If the previous analysis contained results that are not in this results file, what do you want to do with the old results?
OPT.Exclude.NAME = discard
OPT.Include.NAME = keep

TAG.password.NAME = File Password
TAG.password.DESCR = Specify the password to decrypt the test results file

The syntax for the .properties file is as follows:

Using the form_en.properties above for CustomDP results in the following being displayed in the web UI when launching an analysis:

CustomDP pulling translations from a .properties file

Tip

Not all wizards display all Data Providers by default. If your Data Provider does not appear after refreshing your configuration, make sure that your wizard bundle allows displaying all Data Providers by reviewing the tools element of Bundle.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Bundle>
	<Wizard ... >
		...
		<tools all="true">
			...
		</tools>
		...
	</Wizard>
</Bundle>

For more information about the wizard bundle, consult the the chapter called "Project Wizards" in the Configuration Guide.

If you have made this change and your Data Provider still does not appear in your wizard, consult the Validator to find out if it was disabled because of an error in its configuration.

The General section of the Validator shows errors in your Data Providers

Now that you have a new Data Provider available in the web interface (and the command line), this section will show you how to use these parameters and pass them to one or more scripts or executables in order to eventually write data in the format that Squore expects to import during the analysis.

At the end of a Data Provider execution, Squore expects a file named input-data.xml to be written in a specific location. The syntax of the XML file to generate is as follows:

<!-- input-data.xml syntax -->
<bundle version="2.0">
	<artifact [local-key=""] [local-parent=""|parent=""] >
        <artifact [id="<guid-stable-in-time-also-used-as-a-key>"] name="Component" type="REQ" [location=""] >
			<info name|n="DESCR" value="The description of the object"/>
			<key value="3452-e89b-ff82"/>
			<metric name="TEST_KO" value="2"/>
			<finding name="AR120" loc="xxx" p0="The message" />
			<link name="TEST" local-src=""|src=""|local-dst=""|dst="" />
				<artifact id="" name="SubComponent" type="REQ">
				...
				</artifact>
		</artifact>
	</artifact>

	<artifact id="" local-key="" name="" type="" local-parent=""|parent="" [location=""] />
	...

	<link name="" local-src=""|src="" local-dst=""|dst="" />
	...

	<info local-ref=""|ref="" name="" value=""/>
	...

	<metric local-ref=""|ref="" name="" value=""/>
	...

	<finding local-ref=""|ref="" [location=""] p0="" />
	<finding local-ref=""|ref="" [location=""] p0="">
		<location local-ref=""|ref="" [location=""] />
		...
		<relax status="RELAXED_DEROGATION|RELAXED_LEGACY|RELAXED_FALSE_POSITIVE"><![CDATA[My Comment]]></relax>
	</finding>
	...
</bundle>

Your Data Provider is configured by adding an exec-phase element with a mandatory id="add-data" attribute in form.xml.

The basic syntax of an exec-phase can be seen below:

<exec-phase id="add-data">
	<exec name="tcl|perl|java|javascript or nashorn" | executable="/path/to/bin" | executable="executable_name"failOnError="true|false" failOnStdErr="true|false" warn="[WARN]" error="[ERROR|ERR]" fatal="[FATAL]"> 
		<arg value="${<function>(<args>)}"/>
		<arg value="-freeText" />
		<arg value="${<predefinedVars>}" />
		<arg value="versions" />
		<arg value="-myTag"/>
		<arg tag="myTag"/>
		<env key="MY_VAR" value="SOME_VALUE"/>
	</exec>
	<exec ... />
	<exec-tool name="another_data_provider">
		<param key="<tagName>" value="<value>" />
		<param key="<tagName>" tag="<tag>" />
		<param ... />
	</exec-tool>
	<exec-tool ... >
		...
	</exec-tool>
</exec-phase>

<!-- config.xml (server or cli) -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<squore type="server" version="1.3">
  <paths>
     <path name="python" path="C:\Python\python.exe" />
     <path name="git" path="C:\Git\bin\git.exe" />    
  </paths>
...
</squore>

<exec-phase id="add-data">
	<exec executable="git">
		...
	</exec>
	<exec executable="python">
		...
	</exec>
</exec-phase>

<exec-phase id="add-data">
	<exec executable="python">
		<arg value="consolidate-reports-recursive.py" />
		<arg value="-folders" />
		<arg tag="root_folder" />
		<arg value="-outputFile" />
		<arg value="output.csv" />
	</exec>
	<exec-tool name="pep8">
		<param key="csv" value="${getOutputFile(output.csv)}" />
		<param key="separator" tag="separator" defaultValue=";" />
	</exec-tool>
</exec-phase>

<exec-phase id="add-data">
	<exec name="perl"> 
		<arg value="${getToolConfigDir(export_ticket.pl)}" />
		<arg value="-url" />
		<arg tag="url" />
		<arg value="-login" />
		<arg tag="login" />
		<arg value="-pwd" />
		<arg tag="pwd" />
		<arg value="-outputFile" />
		<arg value="${getOutputFile(exportdata.csv,false)}" />
	</exec>
	<exec-tool name="import_ticket">
		<param key="input_file" value="${getOutputFile(exportdata.csv)}" />
		<param key="csv_separator" value=";" />
	</exec-tool>
</exec-phase>

# name: export_ticket.pl
# description: exports issues to a CSV file
use SQuORE::Args;
# ...
# ...
my $url = get_tag_value("url");
my $login = get_tag_value("login");
my $pwd = get_tag_value("pwd");
my $outputFile = get_tag_value("outputFile");
# ...
exit 0;

 <!-- form.xml -->
<exec-phase id="repo-add-data">
	<exec name="tcl">
		<arg value="${getToolAddonsDir(repo-add-data.tcl)}" />
		<arg value="${tclToolkitFile}" />
		<arg value="${squanOutputDirectory}" />
		<arg value="${outputDirectory}" />
		<arg tag="xxx" />
	</exec>
</exec-phase>

#repo-add-data.tcl:
set toolkitFile [lindex $argv 0]
set sqOutputDir [lindex $argv 1]
set outputDir [lindex $argv 2]
set xxx [lindex $argv 3]

# Initialise the toolkit
puts "Initializing toolkit"
source $toolkitFile
toolkit::initialize $sqOutputDir $outputDir
        
# Execute your code
puts "Main execution"
# yout code here
# ...

# Generate xml files (artefacts)
puts "Generating xml files"
toolkit::generate $outputDir {artefacts}

In order to help you import data into Squore, the following Data Provider frameworks are provided and can write a valid input-data.xml file for you: