This gotcha is about the Load Testing tool called JMeter. JMeter is a real nice open source tool from Apache to load test Web Apps. You can set it up as a proxy and capture web pages and then customize the scripts in the GUI to build powerful Load testing scripts. I will be posting more about JMeter in separate post(s) later.
For those who are familiar with JMeter, this tip may be helpful. When you look at the results in a “View Results Tree” (See image below), the Response Data typically comes out as Text (HTML source). I was looking at these text HTML for a bit, baffled what to make out of it. I recently (accidentally) found out that you can change that. There is a drop-down below the tree (list) of pages visited. This is normally defaulted to “TEXT”. If you change it to “HTML” or “HTML (download resources)”, then bingo! the HTML page is displayed. “HTML(download resources)” downloads images, etc. so the page looks much more like the original web page. There are other options like XML, etc.
This choice (drop-down) is kind of away from the response view, so I didn’t pay attention to it. Moral of the story is to click on every button and drop-down on a GUI!! (or read the documentation fully!)
JMeter Response View Gotcha
Filed under: CodeProject, tools
Tagged: JMeter, Load Tests
Originally a Physics major, fell in love with Microprocessors and switched to Computer Science 20+ years ago. Since then, dabbled in various languages including, PowerBuilder, Oracle, Java, C, C++, Perl, Python etc. Constantly striving for quality and performance too.
I try to help fellow developers with technology as a way of "giving back to the community". Blogging became a natural extension of that effort. Still learning to perfect that art. If one new programmer out there benefits from this blog, my time and effort are fully worth it.
The underlying theme in my blogs is power and beauty of programming (and technology in general). A well written program gives me the sense of awe you get when you look at a man made wonder like Angkor Wat. You experience poetry, art, mystique, power all at once. A program and the troubleshooting that ensues also gives you a feeling you get while reading a mystery novel!