Test data management

Introduction

Since we have a lot of separate databases (at least one for each backend), we need to have an easy way to initialize them with test data. For our test plans it is also important that different sets of test data can be loaded into the databases.

We manage this test data in a dedicated repository called test-data.

Data format

The test data is stored as SQL files in the test-data repository. The files are named in the following way:

• For PostgreSQL databases: postgres/<service>/<test-data-set>.sql

By default, our development docker-compose files will load the default.sql file, they can be configured to load other data sets.

Creating a data set for a new service

When you want to add a data set for a new service, you can create a new directory in the test-data repository. The directory name must match the name of the database container in the docker-compose files (omitting the -db postfix).

For example, if you have a database container called overworld-db, you can create a directory called overworld in the postgres directory.

To create the .sql file, just start your service, initialize it with the desired test data (e.g. via Postman), and run the following command:

# example command to export the overworld-db to a file named default.sql
docker exec overworld-db pg_dump --username postgres postgres > default.sql

Commit the file with a message like Add default test data for overworld.

Updating a test data set

If you want to update an existing dataset (for example the default.sql file), first load the existing data set into the database. You can do this by running your service with one of the development docker-compose files.

Make the desired updates (e.g. by sending requests to the service using Postman) and then export the data set using the following command:

# example command to export the overworld-db to a file named default.sql
docker exec overworld-db pg_dump --username postgres postgres > default.sql

Completely replace the contents of the existing .sql file with the newly exported data.

Commit the file with a message stating the changes you made (For example Add more minigame spots to overworld/default.sql).