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Store Target and Post-Processing


The Store tab in the Scenario Editor allows you to define extractors that listen for a specific Step and Request and extract data from its response.

When creating a Store or Assert entry in the Scenario Editor, you must configure the Target according to the type and format of the response.

You can also apply post-processing to the extracted value. Post-processing allows you to transform, encode, decode, or otherwise manipulate the value before it is stored or used by the scenario.

This document provides examples of the values that can be used for the Target and Post-processing fields.

Post-Processing

Post-processing functions operate on the value extracted by the Target.

The value() function represents the value extracted by the configured Target.

Examples:

  • substring(value(), 0, 2) — returns a substring of the extracted value.
  • URLEncode(value()) — URL-encodes the extracted value.
  • URLDecode(value()) — URL-decodes the extracted value.
  • append(value(), "-abc123") — appends the specified string to the extracted value.
  • length(value()) — returns the length of the extracted value.
  • URLParam(value(), 'id') — extracts the specified URL parameter from the value.

Target

The Target field supports different syntaxes depending on the type of response being processed.

The Target hint text in the Scenario Editor can change dynamically according to the selected target type.

The // characters indicate a comment and are not part of the Target syntax, except for HTML Targets, where // is part of the XPath expression.

Default Targets

The following Targets can be used with any supported response:

  • duration — returns the request duration.
  • responseCode — returns the HTTP response status code.
  • size — returns the response size in bytes.
  • md5 — returns the MD5 checksum of the response.

HTTP Targets

For example, given the following response:

data=45, data=68

You can use:

  • raw/data[0] — returns data=45.
  • raw/data[1] — returns data=68.
  • #data — returns 45.
  • Header:Accept — returns the value of the Accept header.
  • CookieValue:CSRF-TOKEN — returns the value of the CSRF-TOKEN cookie.

HTML Targets

Use standard XPath expressions to extract values from HTML responses.

For HTML Targets, the // at the beginning of the Target is part of the XPath and is required.

Example:

  • //input[@name='__RequestVerificationToken']/@value

This Target returns the value of the value attribute of the matching input element.

JSON Targets

Use JSON paths to extract values from JSON responses.

For example, given a JSON response containing an employees array:

  • employees[0].address.city — returns the city of the first employee.
  • [2].carousel.images[1].path — returns the path value of the second image in the carousel of the third element.

PDF Targets

The following Targets can be used to extract information from PDF responses:

  • document — returns all text in the document, excluding form text.
  • page[2] — returns all text from page 2, excluding form text.
  • documentforms — returns a JSON representation of the forms contained in the document.
  • regex:Once upon a .* ever after. — returns the text matching the specified regular expression, if found.

String Targets

String Targets can be used to extract a portion of a response based on delimiters or positions.

For example, given the following response:

The tested process returned: ID=ABCDEF.

Examples:

  • 11,20 — returns processed.
  • ID=,false — returns ABCDEF.
  • ID=,true — returns ID=ABCDEF.
  • ID=,38,false — returns the portion of the response according to the specified delimiter and position.
  • ID=38,true — returns the portion of the response according to the specified position and inclusion option.

Note: The exact behavior of positional String Targets depends on the Target syntax supported by the current AIQ version.

Text Targets

For text responses, specify the Target as a regular expression.

Examples:

  • (?<=\\"__RequestVerificationToken\\" type=\\"hidden\\" value=\\")[a-zA-Z0-9\\-_]+
  • id=.*

The Target returns the text matching the specified regular expression.

CSV Targets

CSV Targets allow you to extract values from responses formatted as CSV.

For example, given the following CSV data:

id

name

state

1

john

California

2

barry

Nevada

3

stef

Texas

4

karla

New York

Examples:

  • 2,2 — returns barry.
  • last(),"name" — returns karla.
  • ,"name" — returns an array containing name, john, barry, stef, and karla.
  • 3,last() — returns Texas.
  • id=3,2 — returns stef.

Note: Make sure the indexing behavior used by CSV Targets matches the indexing convention of your AIQ version.

Last updated: August 12 2026

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