Writing Java tests for MQ Explorer for WebSphere MQ environments

Introduction

The IBM®WEBSPHERE®MQ environment is powerful and involves many object definitions. Allowing automated checks of these object-defined systems helps speed the development and debugging of WebSphere MQ networks.

WebSphere MQ Explorer is the name of the WebSphere MQ administrative toolset that you can use to create, change, and delete objects. MQ Explorer is built on eclipse and can be extended through the Eclipse plug-in. This article describes how to write a plug-in to perform a check in a WebSphere MQ environment and use a plug-in example to verify that all objects conform to the company's naming standards.

The plug-in will be written using Java™ and XML, and the plug-in will implement checks that can be started from the WebSphere MQ Explorer GUI. The results are displayed in Eclipse Problems View and can be grouped into Errors, warnings, or information categories.

Figure 1. WebSphere MQ Explorer GUI (describes the use of Problems view to show the results of tests and checks)

Prerequisite

This article assumes that you have installed WebSphere MQ Explorer on linux® or microsoft®windows®. This article also assumes that you want to use the Eclipse Workbench that is included with WebSphere MQ Explorer. By default, WebSphere MQ Explorer disables the full workbench functionality of the Eclipse platform. To enable the workbench, select Windows => Preferences => WebSphere MQ Explorer and the Startup in a Eclipse Workbench, and then restart WebSphere MQ Ex Plorer.

Figure 2. WebSphere MQ Explorer Preferences dialog box (displays the settings required to run the full Eclipse Workbench)

This article also uses WebSphere MQ Explorer healthcheck Supportpac (MH01) to reduce the Java development required for custom checking. You can download MH01 Supportpac (including installation instructions) at the bottom of this article. It brings the following benefits:

Integration with WebSphere MQ Explorer and Eclipse GUI-the GUI controls used to run the new check are automatically included in the GUI, and the results of the check discovery are displayed in Problems View and managed for you; any documents you provide are displayed and set up in the appropriate way Move, wait.

Basic threading Model-when using the WebSphere MQ Explorer GUI, you can run a new check in the background and do it in parallel with other tests, regardless of the threading meaning in your code.

All you have to do is write the logical code to check the problem and describe how you should describe the potential problem you found.