Generating XML Test File From XSD, part 1

Several weeks ago, I was handed a test automation project, which tasks were pretty simple:

1. Upload several XML files (for several test cases) to a folder in a UNIX machine.
2. Execute shell script to upload the files to MQ
3. Validate the messages from MQ are picked up and processed by agents,
   
4. Make sure the data is properly placed at the database

All of the test steps, validation and reporting are simply automated with the help of Net::SSH::Perl.

Fortunately, the automation project didn't end there, the company is moving forward and it is working on receiving data from other companies/software systems (source). And in order for our system to be able to properly process the XML data from the source, I was informed that the developers from our side are sharing XSD files with the source developers.

The XML files are grouped by the type of legal documents and companies/software systems, and assigned with one XSD file.

Since there are multiple XSD files are involved, it is crucial that the QA team has the capability to quickly generate the XML test files to test the processing system and provide greater test coverage.