Testing Harness for the Expungement Generator

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Cucumber Tests

The Cucumber acceptance tests in this project run against instances of the Expungement Generator.

While I may use these tests to make sure the Expungement Generator is working, you can use them to learn about how the generator is supposed to work.

Hopefully you find these tests useful.

Using the Expungement Generator API to generate petitions

The basic interaction with EG API is a request to the api's url. The API can accept parameters either in the url of your request, as multipart form parameters in a POST, or as json data.

There are a few parameters that every request should have.

personFirst: "Joan"
personLast: "ofArc"
personDOB: "01/06/1431"
current_user: "myownusername@somedomain.org"
apikey: "alongstringofnumbersandletters"

Now you have some choices to make.

Do you want the api to search state court records for a person's name and date of birth?

Use the cpcmsSearch parameter.

cpcmsSearch: "false"|"true"|"f"|"t"|0|1

If you choose "false", and do not want to do a search of state court records, you need to supply docket numbers for the generator to scrape. Use:

docketNums: "CP-51-CR-01010101-2010,MC-51-CR-11001100-2001"

Do you want the expungement generator to actually create expungements petitions for you as a zip file, or just tell you what arrests a person can have expunged?

Use the createPetitions parameter.

createPetitions: "false"|"true"|"f"|"t"|0|1

Should your petitions be emailed back to you?

emailPetitions: false"|"true"|"f"|"t"|0|1

Where should the results be emailed?

By default, they will be emailed to the user whose credentials are in the request. But you can use the parameters emailAddressField and emailDomain to customize where the petitions are sent.

Set emailDomain to the name of the domain where you want to email. i.e. mycasemanagement.com.

Set emailAddressField to the name of another field in the request that holds the value of the email address you want to use.

For example, if you have a caseid in your request called caseid, and you can email your case management system at [caseid]@mycasemanagement.com, you should use:

emailPetitions: "true"|"t"|1
caseid: [somecaseid]
emailAddressField: "caseid"
emailDomain: "mycasemanagement.com"

This will send your petitions to [somecaseid]@mycasemanagement.com

What other information about the subject of the petition should be included in your generated documents?

If you are generating petitions, you can include information about the person for whom you are generating a petition that will be written into the petitions:

personSSN: "111223333"
personStreet: "123 Apt. 4b Blue St."
personCity: "Rainbow City"
personState: "AA"
personZip: "123456"

In summary,

A request to the Generator looks like:

apikey: "apikey"
current_user: "uname@myorg.org"
personFirst: "Joan"
personLast: "ofArc"
personDOB: "01/06/1431"
personState: "FR"
cpcmsSearch: "false"|"true"
docketNums: "Comma,separated,list" # if cpcmsSearch == "false"
createPetitions: 0|1
ssn: "111223333"   # if createPetitions == 1
street: "123 Apt. 4b Blue St."   # if createPetitions == 1
city: "Rainbow City"  # if createPetitions == 1
state: "AA"  # if createPetitions == 1

And the Generator's response looks like:

The api will return a simple JSON formatted string along the lines of

{
  "personFirst": "Joan",
  "personLast": "ofArc",
  "dob": "01/06/1431",
  "results": {
    "dockets": [
        "DOCKET1",
        "DOCKET2"
        ],
    "arrestCount": 1,
    "expungements_redactions": [
      {"case_number": "12345",
       "otns":"234",
       "action_taken":"Partial Expungement",
       "unpaid_costs_fines":"100",
       "unpaid_bail":"0.00",
       "date_order_received":"",
       "PSP":"",
       "local_police":""
      }
    ],
    "sealing":[
      {"case_number":"12345",
       "charge_name":"NA",
       "code_section":"Section 1234",
       "sealable":"NA",
       "additional_information": ""
      }
    ],
    "expungeZip":"https://www.eg-generator.org/eg-api-file-serve.php?filename=[somerandomfilename].zip" // if you selected createPetitions=1
    }
}

If you selected emailPetitions=1, then your petitions will also be emailed to the address of current_user.

How do I access petitions I have generated?

If you selected emailPetitions=1, then you will receive the petitions you generated at the address of current_user.

The JSON response will also include a link. You can use that link to download your petitions. You must also include your api key in that request. So a request for the file would have the base url of the Generator's site, the route eg-apa-file-serve.php, and the parameters filename and apikey.

You can also download the file through the browser interface of the site. Just go to the Generator, log in, and go to the path secureServe.php. Include the filename as a parameter in the url.

Petitions are deleted every day, so the file will not be available for long.

Can I use the Expungement Generator API?

Right now, access is in a testing phase and is invitation-only.