How to update steps of Test Cases in Rally by using the Python API (pyral)

Question

Thanks to the great documentation online for Rally API, I know how to create test steps and update a defect/test case.

A similar question has been asked and answered regarding usage with ...

However, I did not succeed updating a test step by using python API (pyral).

I have tried the following code:

TCid = "TC1392"
testcase=rally.get('TestCase', query='FormattedID = %s' % TCid, instance=True)
print "Updating steps for Test Case %s" % testcase.FormattedID
#Test Steps
try:
    for i in range(3):
        input="Step Input for Step: "+str(i)
        expected_result="Expected Result for Step: "+str(i)

        testcasestep_fields = {
            "TestCase"          : testcase.ref,
            "StepIndex"         : i,
            "Input"             : input,
            "ExpectedResult"    : expected_result
        }

        testcasestep = rally.update('TestCaseStep', testcasestep_fields)
    print "Steps of TestCase %s updated\n" % testcase.FormattedID
except RallyRESTAPIError, details:
    sys.stderr.write('ERROR: %s \n\n' % details)

But this returns the following error: An identifying field (Object or FormattedID) must be specified. The error is raised by the line 991 of pyral/restapi.py.

How to make it work?

Answer 1

The solution I found was to take another approach and looping through the steps and therefore being able to retrieve the oid of each step.

[Update 14 May 2015]: A better approach is to perform 3 steps:

1. update of existing test steps (if any)
2. creation of new test steps (if needed)
3. deletion of extra test steps (if needed)

The program shall first identify the number of steps for each operation.

---

The result looks like this:

TCid = "TC1394"
#Generate random number of steps
def generate_Steps():
    list_Steps=[]
    import random
    n_steps=random.randrange(1,15)
    for i in range(n_steps):
        Step={'StepIndex':i+1}
        Step['Input']="Step Input for step %d" % (i+1)
        Step['ExpectedResult']="Expected Result for step %d" % (i+1)
        list_Steps.append(Step)
    print "Using random list of %d Test Steps" % (n_steps)
    return list_Steps

#Update steps
def update_TestSteps(TCid, Steps):
    try:
        #Get number of existing steps
        testcase=rally.get('TestCase', query='FormattedID = %s' % TCid, instance=True)
        print "Updating steps for Test Case %s" % testcase.FormattedID
        list_steps=sorted(testcase.Steps, key=lambda step: step.StepIndex)
        #Calculate what to do on the steps (how many to update, create, or delete)
        nb_steps = { 'Rally':len(testcase.Steps), 'HTML':len(Steps) } 
        nb_steps['toUpdate'] = min(nb_steps['Rally'], nb_steps['HTML'])
        nb_steps['toCreate'] = nb_steps['HTML'] - nb_steps['toUpdate']
        nb_steps['toDelete'] = nb_steps['Rally'] - nb_steps['toUpdate']

        #Update content of existing steps with steps from test case
        for StepIndex in range(nb_steps['toUpdate']):
            step=list_steps[StepIndex]
            teststep_fields = Steps[StepIndex]
            (teststep_fields['TestCase'], teststep_fields['ObjectID']) = (testcase.ref, step.oid)
            teststep = rally.update('TestCaseStep', teststep_fields)
        #Create new test steps when required
        for StepIndex in range(nb_steps['toCreate']):
            teststep_fields = Steps[StepIndex+nb_steps['toUpdate']]
            teststep_fields['TestCase'] = testcase.ref
            teststep = rally.put('TestCaseStep', teststep_fields)
        #Delete extra test steps
        for StepIndex in range(nb_steps['toDelete']):
            step=list_steps[StepIndex+nb_steps['toUpdate']]
            rally.delete('TestCaseStep', step.oid)

        #Print message for end of test step update
        message="Updated test steps for TestCase %s" % testcase.FormattedID
        message+=" (steps created: {toCreate}, updated: {toUpdate}, deleted: {toDelete})".format(**nb_steps)
        print message

    except RallyRESTAPIError, details:
        sys.stderr.write('Rally Error during update of Test Step:  %s \n\n' % details)

#Update random list of Steps
update_TestSteps(TCid, generate_Steps())