Installation of each Ruby version and Mail gem was really easy so I will not describe it here. What interested me was how fast was Mail on each Ruby implementation.

I have created a simple mail and saved it as 1.eml.

Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:37:34 Central European Standard Time
From: from@test.com
To: to@test.com
Message-ID: <4b336e9e762a0_a1014263a4689d3@2003-ie7.mail>
Subject: This is a test email
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="US-ASCII";
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Some text for mail body

This script will read the file, display subject and time elapsed (in seconds).

time = Time.now
require "rubygems"
require "mail"
mail = Mail.read("1.eml")
puts mail.subject.to_s
puts Time.now - time

I have executed the script three times for each Ruby implementation. It looks to me that CRuby and JRuby are similar in speed, and IronRuby is way slower.

Environment

Tests were run in VMware Fusion 2.0.6 virtual machine, 512 MB RAM, Microsoft Windows Sever 2003 R2 (Standard Edition, Service pack 2).
Host machine is MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X 10.6.2, 4 GB RAM.

>ruby -v
ruby 1.8.6 (2007-09-24 patchlevel 111) [i386-mswin32]

>jruby -v
jruby 1.4.0 (ruby 1.8.7 patchlevel 174) (2009-11-02 69fbfa3) (Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM 1.6.0_10) [x86-java]

>ir -v
IronRuby 0.9.3.0 on .NET 2.0.0.0

Mail version 1.3.4 on all platforms.

I have been using TMail for testing e-mail functionality of web application that I test for a long time. But, development of that library stopped at 2004. Today I found out that it is again in development. Take a look at it’s web site and RubyForge project site.

I had to find out why one user did not receive any mail from us. I tried the usual things, but all looked fine. My developer suggested to troubleshoot it with telnet. I found good article about troubleshooting SMTP issues. What I did:

• open command prompt
• find server
>nslookup -querytype=MX [domain]
...
Non-authoritative answer:
[domain] MX preference = [integer], mail exchanger = [subdomain].[domain]
...

• connect to that machine with telnet
>telnet [subdomain].[domain] 25

• good
  220 SMTP Proxy Server Ready
• not so good
  554 Transaction Failed Listed in connection control deny list

I have written a little framework that helps me with testing e-mail.

To use it, you will have to install Ruby, Tmail and SMTP server.

Then download mail.zip (2,20 KB) and extract it. No installation required. There are even some unit tests (unit_tests.rb) and example code (usage.rb).

Send mail.

SendMail.new(
  "user@domain",
  "application@domain",
  "title",
  "body").send

Check if application sent mail that you have expected.

Mail.received?(
  [Mail.new(
    "application@domain",
    "user@domain",
    "title")])

For now, mail that is sent can only contain from, to, subject and body. While receiving, I only check from, to and subject.

This is code that I am really using every day.

Please understand that I am a tester, not a developer, and I know that this code could be better. Feel free to improve it. Post bug reports and your comments here.

I suggest that you start with little steps, and I mean really little steps.

I assume that you have a test suite that tests web interface of your application. Some tests cause e-mails to be sent. But, until now, you have ignored that e-mails.

First, check if your application sends correct number of mails (see, really little steps). For example, if you are testing forum application, after start a discussion test is performed, check if every member of forum gets e-mail (depending on each member’s settings).

Then, after you have checked number of e-mails after all your tests, start checking if e-mail headers (from, to, subject) are correct for every mail that is sent. After that is done, start checking body, and then attachments.

I think it is better to test only some properties of e-mail but for larger number of e-mails, than testing all properties of e-mail, but for small number of e-mails.

Of course, this is only my advice based on my recent experience. Adjust your tests to your context.

This is the third article. Last week I wrote a little introduction and how to install SMTP server.

As I wrote the last year, when testing e-mail, I am using Ruby and this Ruby libraries:

• receive e-mail – Net::POP3
• send e-mail – Net::SMTP
• create (before sending) and parse e-mail (after receiving) – TMail

Testing is lots of fun. You do something, see what your application does and decide if it is correct behaviour.

Testing e-mail functionality of web applications is lots of fun, too. Also, it can be very time consuming.

Say, for example, you start a discussion at a forum. After discussion is started, forum members receive e-mail saying that new message is started. You could get the same e-mail, or just a confirmation e-mail saying that your contribution was successful. Some members maybe do not receive e-mails immediately after discussion is added, but receive a digest. Every 5, 10, 20 messages; daily, weekly, monthly digest. Some decided that they do not want any e-mail notification.

Another functionality of that forum could be that it receives e-mail. When member of forum sends an e-mail to forums e-mail address, discussion is started, it is visible at web interface, and members of forum receive e-mail notification, regarding of their preferences.

You can test all that. The boring part is waiting… and waiting… more waiting… and some more waiting. You get the point.

If you have Gmail account, you can use it for testing. If you have Gmail address username@gmail.com, just add +something between username and @gmail.com. Like this username+something@gmail.com. Anything you sent to that address will end up in your inbox. That way you can use one account for multiple users.

I would recommend that just for quick test. In my experience, sent e-mail will be delivered somewhere between a few seconds and a few hours. Rarely, even a few days. And the waiting part was really a problem to me.

There is a quicker way:

• Sending e-mail: install SMTP Server at your machine.
• Receiving e-mail (manual): set up application in a way that all mail is delivered to a folder at the same server were web application is, so you can quickly check it (no delays).
• Receiving e-mail (automated): set up POP3 server that will get all mail from that folder.

I do not know how to do that set up, I was lucky enough to have a developer who did it for me.

I will provide more details on automated testing of e-mail functionality in the next post.

Make sure you are logged in as administrator, or start Add or Remove Programs as administrator:

• go to Control Panel
• highlight Add or Remove Programs
• hold Shift key at keyboard
• press right mouse key
• select Run as…
• select administrator account
• enter password if necessary
• press button OK

At Add or Remove Programs:

• click Add/Remove Windows Components
• select Internet Information Services (IIS)
• click Details…
• check SMTP service check box
• Common Files, Internet Information Services Snap-in and World Wide Web Service will automatically select
• do not deselect anything
• finish installation
• you will be prompted to insert Windows operating system CD

I am using Ruby’s Net::SMTP library for sending e-mail. I tried to send an e-mail and got this exception:

Exception: 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for community@site

You need to change a setting or two:

• go to Internet Information Services (in Administrative Tools)
• right click Default SMTP Virtual Server
• click Properties
• select Access tab (second from the left)
• click button Relay… (bottom right)
• select Only the list below radio button
• click button Add…
• add 127.0.0.1

Many thanks to my developer who helped me to install and adjust my SMTP server.

my application has sent an email to outlook. i want watir to open outlook, open the mail and get the mail data like from text and so on.

I also have to test my application to see if it sends correct e-mails. So I knew the answer.

You do not have to open Outlook to see your mail. You can read you e-mail from ruby.

- receive e-mail – Net::POP3
- send e-mail – Net::SMTP
- create (before sending) and parse e-mail (from file, after receiving) – TMail

Net::POP3 and Net::SMTP are included in Ruby. TMail needs installation. I had a problem with TMail installation, and I contacted author. He recommended this procedure, and now it works.

ruby setup.rb config --without-ext
ruby setup.rb setup
ruby setup.rb install