Release history

The current section provides an overview of the changes in each GITB TDL release.

Release numbers follow global numbering covering all Test Bed components, meaning that certain releases may have not actually introduced changes to the GITB TDL. The current page lists only the releases that introduced changes, whereas those not included are global maintenance releases that made no changes to the GITB TDL.

The latest GITB TDL release is 1.27.1.

Release 1.27.0 - 24/06/2025

Description of changes

Relevant sections

New inputs for the HttpMessagingV2 handler to control the display of information in step reports.

HttpMessagingV2 Tuning reported data

New inputs for the SoapMessagingV2 handler to control the display of information in step reports.

SoapMessagingV2 Tuning reported data

New showLocationPaths input for the XmlValidator and SchematronValidator handlers to show reported item’s location paths.

XmlValidator SchematronValidator

Release 1.26.0 - 12/06/2025

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.26.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

New JsonValidator handler for verify steps to validate JSON against JSON Schema.

JsonValidator

New ShaclValidator handler for verify steps to validate RDF models against SHACL shapes.

ShaclValidator

New YamlValidator handler for verify steps to validate YAML against JSON Schema.

YamlValidator

Support the delegation of an interact step to an external handler service instead of the default UI-based approach, that will be conditionally triggered to complete the interaction.

Delegating to external handler services

Extend all test steps with a skipped attribute to allow them being conditionally skipped during test execution.

Skip test steps

Introduce a RdfUtils handler for process steps to manipulate (merge, convert) and query (ask, construct, select) RDF models.

RdfUtils

Add a find operation to CollectionUtils to support searching for and returning a value from a list or map (with case-sensitive matching or not).

CollectionUtils - find

Extend the contains operation of CollectionUtils to support lookups that ignore casing.

CollectionUtils - contains

Extend the append operation of CollectionUtils to support appending only missing items (case-sensitive or not) to the target map or list.

CollectionUtils - append

Support the generation of multiple test case output messages based on condition matching logic defined by the match attribute (set as first, all or cascade).

Output

Consider the type of test case and scriptlet imports optional, with binary as the default.

Imports

Extended the StringValidator, NumberValidator, ExpressionValidator, RegExpValidator and XPathValidator with optional successMessage and failureMessage inputs to add user-friendly messages in the resulting report.

StringValidator, NumberValidator, ExpressionValidator, RegExpValidator, XPathValidator

Applied consistent naming (with backwards compatibility through aliases) for the NumberValidator, StringValidator, XPathValidator, XsdValidator, SchematronValidator, XsltProcessor and JsonPointerProcessor built-in step handlers.

Built-in handlers

Allow scriptlet inputs for flags used at test case load time to refer to configuration properties.

Dynamic presentation in scriptlets, Dynamic steps in scriptlets

Extend the interact step with a blocking attribute (by default “false”) to automatically proceed to the next step in case only instruct elements are defined.

Displaying data using instruct elements

Extend the request elements of interact steps to allow specifying inputs as required (optional remaining the default).

Requesting inputs using request elements

Consider as optional the from and to of receive steps defaulting, respectively, to the SUT and non-SUT actors.

Explicitly specifying from and to actors

Consider as optional the from and to of send steps defaulting, respectively, to the non-SUT and SUT actors.

Explicitly specifying from and to actors

Extend the assign step with the byValue attribute to allow choosing by-value or by-reference assignment for maps and lists.

Assignment by-reference and by-value

Remove the scope isolation requirement for remotely loaded scriptlets, making them identical behaviour-wise to local ones.

Scriptlets

Release 1.25.0 - 31/01/2025

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.25.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Support test case groups within which only a single successful result is needed to ensure conformance.

Test case groups

Allow the send, receive and process steps to be configured with their severity level in case of failures via the level attribute.

receive, send, process

Allow the send, receive, process and verify steps to have their outcome inverted via the invert attribute.

receive, send, process, verify

The DisplayProcessor can now be used without parameters to only display an overall result.

DisplayProcessor

Support test case output messages also for undefined outcomes.

Output

Optionally record the original file name for files uploaded via interact steps.

interact

Support exit steps terminating test sessions with an undefined outcome.

exit

Steps defining children support the stopOnChildError flag to stop processing upon child error but not terminate the test session.

Skip child steps in case of error

The group step’s boundary can now be hidden by means of the hiddenContainer flag.

group

New XPathProcessor processing handler to extract content from XML using XPath.

XPathProcessor

Release 1.24.0 - 15/10/2024

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.24.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Support for optional scriptlet parameters and parameters set as empty by default.

Params

New VariableUtils built-in processor for common operations (exists, type) on variables.

VariableUtils

New operation for the CollectionUtils built-in processor to append collections.

CollectionUtils

New inputs for the HttpMessagingV2 built-in messaging handler to set maximum timeouts (connection and request) when calling a remote service.

Use in send steps

Release 1.23.0 - 20/06/2024

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.23.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

New HttpMessagingV2 handler for HTTP messaging, replacing and improving upon the deprecated HttpMessaging and HttpsMessaging.

HttpMessagingV2

New SoapMessagingV2 handler for SOAP messaging, replacing and improving upon the deprecated SoapMessaging.

SoapMessagingV2

New $SYSTEM{apiKey} variable available in test sessions with the unique API key of the system under test.

System configuration parameters

The HttpMessaging, HttpsMessaging and SoapMessaging handlers now return a http_status entry in the receive step’s report.

HttpMessaging, HttpsMessaging, SoapMessaging

Test session logging level set to INFO by default.

Test case logging

Release 1.22.0 - 08/04/2024

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.22.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Interaction steps now support the admin attribute to specify that they should be completed by an administrator.

interact

Interaction steps now support the timeout attribute to automatically complete them after the timeout period.

interact

Interaction steps can now be minimised and also completed asynchronously.

interact

The interaction step’s mimeType attribute can now be set via variable reference.

interact

Test suites and test cases support the definition of structured normative reference information.

reference (test suite), reference (test case),

The DisplayProcessor can now be set with a configurable result to mark its report as a success, failure or warning.

DisplayProcessor

The documentation on service handlers for test steps was extended to list reusable external services available to test developers.

Reusable external handlers

Release 1.21.0 - 06/10/2023

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.21.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Interaction steps now support the forceDisplay attribute to ensure an inline display of their content.

interact

The TokenGenerator now allows the generation of random numbers via the new random operation.

TokenGenerator

New DelayProcessor to make it simpler to pause test sessions for a given duration.

DelayProcessor

New JSONPointerProcessor to extract data from JSON content using JSON Pointer expressions.

JsonPointerProcessor

Test cases can now be defined as optional and disabled restricting whether they can be executed and how their results are considered.

Test cases

Test suite and test case definitions now support an update metadata element to define how to carry out the update of existing test suites and test cases.

update (test suite), update (test case)

Test cases can now define tags as part of their metadata to classify them and visually distinguish them for users.

tags

Release 1.19.0 - 17/03/2023

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.19.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Extensions to step status checks (STEP_SUCCESS, STEP_STATUS) to uniquely refer to steps within scriptlets.

Status checks for scriptlet steps

New operations (contains, randomKey, randomValue, remove) for the CollectionUtils processor.

CollectionUtils

Release 1.18.0 - 17/10/2022

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.18.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

New XmlValidator validation handler to validate XML against both XSDs and Schematrons.

XmlValidator

New ExpressionValidator validation handler to check arbitrary expressions.

ExpressionValidator

The TokenGenerator now accepts an optional prefix and postfix to add to generated UUIDs.

TokenGenerator

The SimulatedMessaging and DisplayProcessor handlers can now also specify the content types of data in their reports.

SimulatedMessaging, DisplayProcessor

The reply attribute of messaging steps can now be set dynamically within scriptlets.

Dynamic presentation in scriptlets

The call step can now also be set as hidden to hide all steps of the referenced scriptlet.

call

The SchematronValidator can now show the assertions made for each finding.

SchematronValidator

The XSDValidator and SchematronValidator can now present findings sorted by their severity.

XsdValidator, SchematronValidator

The XSDValidator and SchematronValidator can now hide from their report the XSD or Schematron used for the validation.

XsdValidator, SchematronValidator

Scriptlet parameters can now be set with default values.

Params

flow steps can now have individually hidden thread blocks.

flow

Steps’ hidden attribute can now be set in scriptlets via variable reference.

Dynamic steps in scriptlets

if steps can be set as static for dynamic inclusion of steps within scriptlets.

Displaying contained steps without a boundary, Dynamic steps in scriptlets

if steps can now be set as hidden with visible child steps.

Displaying contained steps without a boundary

New SESSION map allowing access to test session metadata (session identifier, test case identifier, TDL version).

Accessing test session metadata

Actor configuration (endpoint) parameters can now be set with default values and user friendly names.

Actors

Using a process step via its simplified syntax now supports mapping of the input to a parameter based on the defined types.

Simplified processing steps

Allow the assign step to create on-the-fly maps and lists at any nesting level.

assign

New TestCaseOverviewReport root element of type TestCaseOverviewReportType in the gitb_tr.xsd for an XML test case overview report.

Specification links

Release 1.17.0 - 20/07/2022

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.17.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Steps’ desc, from, to, title and inputTitle values can be set as constant variable references when used within scriptlets.

Dynamic presentation in scriptlets

New TemplateProcessor embedded processing handler for complex generation of data based on templates.

TemplateProcessor

New XSLTProcessor embedded processing handler for XSLT transformations of XML content.

XsltProcessor

New DisplayProcessor embedded processing handler for displaying arbitrary content to users in a non-obtrusive manner.

DisplayProcessor

New SimulatedMessaging embedded messaging handler to add simulated message exchanges between actors.

SimulatedMessaging

Messaging transactions (defined via btxn) are no longer mandatory for send and receive messaging steps.

send, receive

Non-transactional, non-embedded (external) process, send and receive steps can now also specify authentication properties for the handler service call.

Authentication for external handlers

The GITB TDL’s expression language is now upgraded from XPath 1.0 to XPath 3.0.

Expressions

Release 1.16.0 - 18/03/2022

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.16.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Namespaces can now be defined to simplify XPath expressions in GITB TDL steps and the XPathValidator.

Namespaces

Actors defined in test cases are considered by default as SIMULATED.

Actors

Introduction of the STEP_STATUS variable to record and query the specific status of each step.

Checking the status of a specific step

Reuse of steps’ desc attribute to identify them in the test session log to make log entries more meaningful.

Test steps

Support for test session log contributions from custom test services used as remote service handlers.

log

Support for the parallel or sequential execution of a test suite’s test cases when a test suite is executed in the background.

Test cases

Test cases now feature the supportsParallelExecution attribute that can be used to enforce a test case’s execution in isolation.

Test cases

Release 1.15.0 - 29/11/2021

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.15.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Messaging steps now support the reply attribute to indicate that they should be presented as reply messages.

send, receive, listen

Support for automatically converting non-list values to lists (as single-item lists containing the value).

Type conversions

Support for automatically converting lists and maps to strings.

Type conversions

The log step now supports a level attribute to define the message’s severity level.

log

Test cases now support the logLevel attribute to control which messages are included in test session logs.

Steps

The severity level of verify steps can be now be provided dynamically via variable reference.

verify

The process step now enables simplified usage through the input, operation and output attributes.

Simplified processing steps

The call step now enables simplified usage through the input and output attributes.

Simplified call steps

Release 1.14.0 - 17/08/2021

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.14.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

The receive elements of interact steps support the inputType and mimeType attributes to determine the type of input control to use.

interact

The instruct elements of interact steps support the mimeType attribute to determine downloaded file extensions and editor syntax highlighting.

interact

Release 1.13.0 - 01/07/2021

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.13.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

The process step can now be displayed in the test case’s presentation.

process

Support for the hidden attribute to define steps that are not included in the test case’s presentation.

Hide test steps

Support for the collapsed attribute on group steps to have them displayed as initially collapsed.

Collapse sets of test steps

Extended group steps to allow them to be included in the test case’s presentation.

group

Release 1.12.0 - 03/03/2021

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.12.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Support for test suites without actor definitions nor test cases, as shared resource holders.

Test suites as shared resource holders

Support for sharing resources (scriptlets, artifacts, documentation) across test suites.

Sharing resources across test suites

Support for sharing scriptlets across test cases, scriptlet output expressions, optional parameters, variables and outputs.

Scriptlets (standalone), Scriptlets (test case), call

New embedded processing handler RegExpProcessor to process texts using regular expressions.

RegExpProcessor

New embedded processing handler CollectionUtils providing utility functions for maps and lists.

CollectionUtils

The TokenGenerator processing handler now allows manipulation of dates based on existing, formatted, date values.

TokenGenerator

The SchematronValidator validation handler now supports defining the Schematron file type (XSLT or SCH) as an input.

SchematronValidator

Release 1.11.1 - 11/12/2020

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.11.1 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Referencing a missing variable evaluates as an empty string.

Missing variables

Release 1.11.0 - 13/11/2020

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.11.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Support for stopping a test session immediately upon a step’s failure.

Stop the test session in case of error, Steps

Support for custom output messages as the overall result of a test session’s execution.

Output

Allow a verify step to optionally store its report’s context data.

verify

New TEST_SUCCESS variable used to track the overall status of the test session at any point.

Checking the result of test steps

Support for custom titles for the user input popups linked to the interact step.

interact

Release 1.10.0 - 07/09/2020

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.10.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Test case imports can now be defined dynamically using variable references.

Imports, Where can expressions be used?

Support for a custom title for if, interact, while, repuntil, foreach and flow steps.

if, interact, while, repuntil, foreach, flow

Actors’ endpoint parameters can now be defined as hidden to have them visible only to administrators.

Actors

Actors’ endpoint parameters now support the definition of allowed values with optional labels (allowedValues and allowedValueLabels).

Actors

Actors’ endpoint parameters now support defining other parameters as prerequisites (dependsOn and dependsOnValue).

Actors

New log step to add arbitrary information to the test session’s log output.

log

The documentation content for test suites, test cases and test steps can now be provided via imported resource.

Metadata, Metadata, Rich documentation per step

The ID of test suites and test cases is now considered in the GITB software for referencing and matching.

Test suites, Test cases

Release 1.9.0 - 30/04/2020

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.9.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Rich text documentation can now also be set for test suites via the documentation element.

Metadata

Rich text documentation can now also be set for test cases via the documentation element.

Metadata

Assign steps can now automatically create variables to store expression output.

assign, Variables, Defining variables from expressions

New Base64Processor for the handling of Base64 and data URL encoding in test cases.

Base64Processor

Release 1.8.0 - 20/01/2020

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.8.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Actors can now be set as hidden to prevent them from being used in new conformance statements.

Actors

Support for different severity levels for the validation carried out by verify steps.

verify

Rich text documentation can now be set for test steps via the documentation element to provide further information or instructions.

Test steps, Rich documentation per step

Release 1.7.2 - 11/12/2019

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.7.2 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Any expression can now be set with asTemplate to be used as a template for placeholder replacement.

Expressions and templates

Release 1.7.0 - 07/10/2019

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.7.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Support for organisation and system level configuration parameters.

Referring to configuration parameters

Support for binary values in all levels of configuration parameters.

Referring to configuration parameters

Support for endpoint configuration parameters to be defined as editable only by administrators (adminOnly) and make their inclusion in test sessions optional (notForTests).

Actors

Endpoint configuration parameters can now have secret values.

Actors

Release 1.6.1 - 14/06/2019

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.6.1 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Additional documentation for the use of templates.

Expressions and templates

Extensions to the TokenGenerator handler to fine-tune timestamp generation.

TokenGenerator

Release 1.6.0 - 29/05/2019

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.6.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Documented the embedded UDPMessaging messaging handler.

UDPMessaging

Introduced a new STEP_SUCCESS map variable to record the status of executed steps.

Checking whether a specific step succeeded

Step attributes now allow definition of text values including spaces, and numbers that are signed or floating point.

Test steps

Support for single and multiple selection lists to receive input in user interaction steps.

interact

Processing transactions are now optional allowing for simpler use of stateless processing steps.

bptxn, process

New embedded TokenGenerator processing handler to generate text tokens.

TokenGenerator

New embedded XmlMatchValidator validation handler for template-based matching of XML documents.

XmlMatchValidator

Test case variable values now correctly allow the definition only of a type and name.

Variables

Release 1.5.0 - 06/11/2018

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.5.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

The XPathValidator is now updated to support XPath 3.0 expressions (from the previous limitation to XPath 1.0)

XPathValidator

Support for any type of input that can be converted to string``s can now be passed to the ``XPathValidator and StringValidator

XPathValidator, StringValidator

Added a new RegExpValidator to test text against a regular expression

RegExpValidator

Improved default handling of the with, type and contentType properties linked to user interactions

interact, Preliminary

Allowed user interactions to present binary content for download

interact, Preliminary

The test suite name can now be ommitted in the value provided for test case import elements

Imports

It is now possible to define an actor as the specification’s default to have it automatically selected for new conformance statements

Actors

The display order of actors in test execution diagrams can now be set at test suite and test case level

Actors (test suite), Actors (test case)

The exit step is now correctly reflected on the user interface and can be set to be either a success or a failure

exit

The if step now considers the else block as optional

if

Release 1.4.1 - 28/09/2018

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.4.1 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

The HttpMessaging handler now supports HTTPS via configuration as well as handling of multipart forms

HttpMessaging

Release 1.3.0 - 25/05/2018

The documentation for GITB TDL release 1.3.0 is available here.

Description of changes

Relevant sections

Transactions (messaging and processing) now support config elements to customise transaction creation

btxn, bptxn

Configuration elements (config) now support variable references

btxn, send, receive, listen, bptxn, verify

User instructions now consider “string” as the default type and can be fully empty in case of simple messages

interact

User requests now consider “STRING” as the default content type

interact

The foreach step now allows its boundaries (start and end) to be set using variable references

foreach

Actors can now be defined in test suites without endpoints

Actors

Service handler implementations can now be specified with variable references

Specifying the handler implementation

The receive step now allows a timeout to be specified

receive

Communication with service handlers now supports authentication (HTTP Basic and UsernameToken)

Specifying the handler implementation

The SoapMessaging embedded messaging handler now supports HTTPS

SoapMessaging

Value ‘CONFORMANCE’ is now correctly considered as the default test case type

Metadata

The actor name defined in a test case does not have to match the actor ID

Actors

Domain-level configuration parameters can now be used in expressions

Domain configuration parameters

Release 1.2.0 - 18/03/2018

Initial release of the documentation for the GITB TDL (release 1.2.0), available here.