Parameterizing both data and object names using testNG and Data Providers

Question

I am trying to create a hybrid framework where I will be passing the object names and the corresponding values from an excel sheet. Here is what I want to do

FieldName   Type   Value1   Value2  Value3  
FName       Edit   John     Smith   Carla    
LName       Edit   Fellow   Carson  Black    
Submit      Link   Click    Click   Click    

• Field Name: Contains the Xpath or ID's for identifying the objects
• Type: Contains the type, like text box or list box etc, so that I can use a IF loop to handle each TYPE of object accordingly.
• Value 1..3..: The different values I want to run the test (objects) agianst.

How can I go about doing this using Data Providers, because Ideally the first 2 columns need to be constant while I use different data values. Also, the dataproviders seem to be reading the array row wise. Sorry if this is a elementary question, I am new to testNG and had heard excellent things about and wanted to check it out.

Answer 1

Data providers return whatever data works for you, so you just need to think about how you can turn this spreadsheet into objects that your test method will accept. For example, if you want your test to take one parameter per column:

@Test(dataProvider = "dp")
public void f(String fieldName, String type, String value1, String value2, String value3) {
  // test
}

@DataProvider
public Object[][] dp() {
  // read the spreadsheet
  return new Object[][] {
    new Object[] { fieldName, type, value1, value2, value3 },  // row 1
    new Object[] { fieldName, type, value1, value2, value3 },  // row 2
  }
}