SoapUI Mock Service Custom Sequence of Responses - groovy

Question

I have a SoapUI Mock Service with multiple responses. I want to define a custom sequence for my responses and I do not necessarily use all of the responses in this particular test.
I have actually managed to get this to work in the past, but I think something changed in a newer version of the product and the feature stopped working. That was with a SOAP web service. Now I am mocking a RESTful web service and I have the same requirement to help me do my tests.
The SEQUENCE dispatch option is not what I want, because it will return all of the defined responses in the order in which they were created. The SCRIPT option is what I used previously but now all I can achieve with this is define one response to be generated. For this test I have no interest in examining some content of the request to decide which response to send back.
For example, if I have 8 responses defined, I just want to be able to specify that the following responses are returned:-
Response #2, then Response #3, then Response #4, then finally Response #7; so that Responses #1, #5, #6 and #8 are not used.
My question is posed in detail in the SmartBear forum here:-
simple scripting in a Mock Service - no longer works

Answer 1

I try as you post in the SOAPUI forum using consecutive returns statements with the response order an it doesn't work.
Instead of your groovy code as a DISPATCH script I purpose to use the follow groovy code as workaround, which consist in a use of a list to keep your responses in the desired order and keeping this list in the context an updating it each time using the following code:
// get the list from the context
def myRespList = context.myRespList
// if list is null or empty reinitalize it
if(!myRespList || !myRespList?.size){
// list in the desired output order using the response names that your
// create in your mockservice
myRespList = ["Response 2","Response 3","Response 4","Response 7"]
}
// take the first element from the list
def resp = myRespList.take(1)
// update the context with the list without this element
context.myRespList = myRespList.drop(1)
// return the response
log.info "-->"+resp
return resp
This code works as you expect, since context is keeping the list and each time this script returns the next response and when the list is empty it repopulate it an restart the loop again in the same order.
As an illustration when I use this mockService I get the follow script log:
EDIT
If as OP you've problems with your SOAPUI version because the returned string is between square brackets as ie: [Response 1], change the way that element is taken from the array using:
// take the first element from the list
def resp = myRespList.take(1)[0]
instead of:
// take the first element from the list
def resp = myRespList.take(1)
Note the [0].
With this change the return string will be Response 1 instead of [Response 1].
In this case the script will be:
// get the list from the context
def myRespList = context.myRespList
// if list is null or empty reinitalize it
if(!myRespList || !myRespList?.size){
// list in the desired output order using the response names that your
// create in your mockservice
myRespList = ["Response 2","Response 3","Response 4","Response 7"]
}
// take the first element from the list
def resp = myRespList.take(1)[0]
// update the context with the list without this element
context.myRespList = myRespList.drop(1)
// return the response
log.info "-->"+resp
return resp
Hope this helps,