tcltest - Test harness support code and utilities
package require tcltest ?2.3?
tcltest::test name description ?option value ...?
tcltest::test name description ?constraints? body result
tcltest::loadTestedCommands
tcltest::makeDirectory name ?directory?
tcltest::removeDirectory name ?directory?
tcltest::makeFile contents name ?directory?
tcltest::removeFile name ?directory?
tcltest::viewFile name ?directory?
tcltest::cleanupTests ?runningMultipleTests?
tcltest::runAllTests
tcltest::configure
tcltest::configure option
tcltest::configure option value ?option value ...?
tcltest::customMatch mode command
tcltest::testConstraint constraint ?value?
tcltest::outputChannel ?channelID?
tcltest::errorChannel ?channelID?
tcltest::interpreter ?interp?
tcltest::debug ?level?
tcltest::errorFile ?filename?
tcltest::limitConstraints ?boolean?
tcltest::loadFile ?filename?
tcltest::loadScript ?script?
tcltest::match ?patternList?
tcltest::matchDirectories ?patternList?
tcltest::matchFiles ?patternList?
tcltest::outputFile ?filename?
tcltest::preserveCore ?level?
tcltest::singleProcess ?boolean?
tcltest::skip ?patternList?
tcltest::skipDirectories ?patternList?
tcltest::skipFiles ?patternList?
tcltest::temporaryDirectory ?directory?
tcltest::testsDirectory ?directory?
tcltest::verbose ?level?
tcltest::test name description optionList
tcltest::bytestring string
tcltest::normalizeMsg msg
tcltest::normalizePath pathVar
tcltest::workingDirectory ?dir?
The
tcltest package provides several utility commands useful in the
construction of test suites for code instrumented to be run by evaluation of
Tcl commands. Notably the built-in commands of the Tcl library itself are
tested by a test suite using the tcltest package.
All the commands provided by the
tcltest package are defined in and
exported from the
::tcltest namespace, as indicated in the
SYNOPSIS above. In the following sections, all commands will be
described by their simple names, in the interest of brevity.
The central command of
tcltest is
test that defines and runs a
test. Testing with
test involves evaluation of a Tcl script and
comparing the result to an expected result, as configured and controlled by a
number of options. Several other commands provided by
tcltest govern
the configuration of
test and the collection of many
test
commands into test suites.
See
CREATING TEST SUITES WITH TCLTEST below for an extended example of
how to use the commands of
tcltest to produce test suites for your
Tcl-enabled code.
- test name description ?option value ...?
- Defines and possibly runs a test with the name name and description
description. The name and description of a test are used in
messages reported by test during the test, as configured by the
options of tcltest. The remaining option value arguments to
test define the test, including the scripts to run, the conditions
under which to run them, the expected result, and the means by which the
expected and actual results should be compared. See TESTS below for
a complete description of the valid options and how they define a test.
The test command returns an empty string.
- test name description ?constraints? body result
- This form of test is provided to support test suites written for
version 1 of the tcltest package, and also a simpler interface for
a common usage. It is the same as “ test name
description -constraints constraints -body
body -result result”. All other options
to test take their default values. When constraints is
omitted, this form of test can be distinguished from the first
because all options begin with “-”.
- loadTestedCommands
- Evaluates in the caller's context the script specified by configure
-load or configure -loadfile. Returns the result of that script
evaluation, including any error raised by the script. Use this command and
the related configuration options to provide the commands to be tested to
the interpreter running the test suite.
- makeFile contents name ?directory?
- Creates a file named name relative to directory directory
and write contents to that file using the encoding encoding
system. If contents does not end with a newline, a newline will
be appended so that the file named name does end with a newline.
Because the system encoding is used, this command is only suitable for
making text files. The file will be removed by the next evaluation of
cleanupTests, unless it is removed by removeFile first. The
default value of directory is the directory configure
-tmpdir. Returns the full path of the file created. Use this command
to create any text file required by a test with contents as needed.
- removeFile name ?directory?
- Forces the file referenced by name to be removed. This file name
should be relative to directory. The default value of
directory is the directory configure -tmpdir. Returns an
empty string. Use this command to delete files created by
makeFile.
- makeDirectory name ?directory?
- Creates a directory named name relative to directory
directory. The directory will be removed by the next evaluation of
cleanupTests, unless it is removed by removeDirectory first.
The default value of directory is the directory configure
-tmpdir. Returns the full path of the directory created. Use this
command to create any directories that are required to exist by a
test.
- removeDirectory name ?directory?
- Forces the directory referenced by name to be removed. This
directory should be relative to directory. The default value of
directory is the directory configure -tmpdir. Returns an
empty string. Use this command to delete any directories created by
makeDirectory.
- viewFile file ?directory?
- Returns the contents of file, except for any final newline, just as
read -nonewline would return. This file name should be relative to
directory. The default value of directory is the directory
configure -tmpdir. Use this command as a convenient way to turn the
contents of a file generated by a test into the result of that test for
matching against an expected result. The contents of the file are read
using the system encoding, so its usefulness is limited to text
files.
- cleanupTests
- Intended to clean up and summarize after several tests have been run.
Typically called once per test file, at the end of the file after all
tests have been completed. For best effectiveness, be sure that the
cleanupTests is evaluated even if an error occurs earlier in the
test file evaluation.
Prints statistics about the tests run and removes files that were created by
makeDirectory and
makeFile since the last
cleanupTests.
Names of files and directories in the directory
configure -tmpdir
created since the last
cleanupTests, but not created by
makeFile
or
makeDirectory are printed to
outputChannel. This command also
restores the original shell environment, as described by the
::env
array. Returns an empty string.
- runAllTests
- This is a master command meant to run an entire suite of tests, spanning
multiple files and/or directories, as governed by the configurable options
of tcltest. See RUNNING ALL TESTS below for a complete
description of the many variations possible with runAllTests.
- configure
- Returns the list of configurable options supported by tcltest. See
CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS below for the full list of options, their
valid values, and their effect on tcltest operations.
- configure option
- Returns the current value of the supported configurable option
option. Raises an error if option is not a supported
configurable option.
- configure option value ?option value ...?
- Sets the value of each configurable option option to the
corresponding value value, in order. Raises an error if an
option is not a supported configurable option, or if value
is not a valid value for the corresponding option, or if a
value is not provided. When an error is raised, the operation of
configure is halted, and subsequent option value arguments
are not processed.
If the environment variable
::env(TCLTEST_OPTIONS) exists when the
tcltest package is loaded (by
package require tcltest) then its
value is taken as a list of arguments to pass to
configure. This allows
the default values of the configuration options to be set by the
environment.
- customMatch mode script
- Registers mode as a new legal value of the -match option to
test. When the -match mode option is passed to
test, the script script will be evaluated to compare the
actual result of evaluating the body of the test to the expected result.
To perform the match, the script is completed with two additional
words, the expected result, and the actual result, and the completed
script is evaluated in the global namespace. The completed script is
expected to return a boolean value indicating whether or not the results
match. The built-in matching modes of test are exact,
glob, and regexp.
- testConstraint constraint ?boolean?
- Sets or returns the boolean value associated with the named
constraint. See TEST CONSTRAINTS below for more
information.
- interpreter ?executableName?
- Sets or returns the name of the executable to be execed by
runAllTests to run each test file when configure -singleproc
is false. The default value for interpreter is the name of the
currently running program as returned by info
nameofexecutable.
- outputChannel ?channelID?
- Sets or returns the output channel ID. This defaults to stdout. Any test
that prints test related output should send that output to
outputChannel rather than letting that output default to
stdout.
- errorChannel ?channelID?
- Sets or returns the error channel ID. This defaults to stderr. Any test
that prints error messages should send that output to errorChannel
rather than printing directly to stderr.
- debug ?level?
- Same as configure -debug ?level?.
- errorFile ?filename?
- Same as configure -errfile ?filename?.
- limitConstraints ?boolean?
- Same as configure -limitconstraints ?boolean?.
- loadFile ?filename?
- Same as configure -loadfile ?filename?.
- loadScript ?script?
- Same as configure -load ?script?.
- match ?patternList?
- Same as configure -match ?patternList?.
- matchDirectories ?patternList?
- Same as configure -relateddir ?patternList?.
- matchFiles ?patternList?
- Same as configure -file ?patternList?.
- outputFile ?filename?
- Same as configure -outfile ?filename?.
- preserveCore ?level?
- Same as configure -preservecore ?level?.
- singleProcess ?boolean?
- Same as configure -singleproc ?boolean?.
- skip ?patternList?
- Same as configure -skip ?patternList?.
- skipDirectories ?patternList?
- Same as configure -asidefromdir ?patternList?.
- skipFiles ?patternList?
- Same as configure -notfile ?patternList?.
- temporaryDirectory ?directory?
- Same as configure -tmpdir ?directory?.
- testsDirectory ?directory?
- Same as configure -testdir ?directory?.
- verbose ?level?
- Same as configure -verbose ?level?.
The remaining commands provided by
tcltest have better alternatives
provided by
tcltest or
Tcl itself. They are retained to support
existing test suites, but should be avoided in new code.
- test name description optionList
- This form of test was provided to enable passing many options
spanning several lines to test as a single argument quoted by
braces, rather than needing to backslash quote the newlines between
arguments to test. The optionList argument is expected to be
a list with an even number of elements representing option and
value arguments to pass to test. However, these values are
not passed directly, as in the alternate forms of switch. Instead,
this form makes an unfortunate attempt to overthrow Tcl's substitution
rules by performing substitutions on some of the list elements as an
attempt to implement a “do what I mean” interpretation of a
brace-enclosed “block”. The result is nearly impossible to
document clearly, and for that reason this form is not recommended. See
the examples in CREATING TEST SUITES WITH TCLTEST below to see that
this form is really not necessary to avoid backslash-quoted newlines. If
you insist on using this form, examine the source code of tcltest
if you want to know the substitution details, or just enclose the third
through last argument to test in braces and hope for the best.
- workingDirectory ?directoryName?
- Sets or returns the current working directory when the test suite is
running. The default value for workingDirectory is the directory in which
the test suite was launched. The Tcl commands cd and pwd are
sufficient replacements.
- normalizeMsg msg
- Returns the result of removing the “extra” newlines from
msg, where “extra” is rather imprecise. Tcl offers
plenty of string processing commands to modify strings as you wish, and
customMatch allows flexible matching of actual and expected
results.
- normalizePath pathVar
- Resolves symlinks in a path, thus creating a path without internal
redirection. It is assumed that pathVar is absolute. pathVar
is modified in place. The Tcl command file normalize is a
sufficient replacement.
- bytestring string
- Construct a string that consists of the requested sequence of bytes, as
opposed to a string of properly formed UTF-8 characters using the value
supplied in string. This allows the tester to create denormalized
or improperly formed strings to pass to C procedures that are supposed to
accept strings with embedded NULL types and confirm that a string result
has a certain pattern of bytes. This is exactly equivalent to the Tcl
command encoding convertfrom identity.
The
test command is the heart of the
tcltest package. Its
essential function is to evaluate a Tcl script and compare the result with an
expected result. The options of
test define the test script, the
environment in which to evaluate it, the expected result, and how the compare
the actual result to the expected result. Some configuration options of
tcltest also influence how
test operates.
The valid options for
test are summarized:
test name description
?-constraints keywordList|expression?
?-setup setupScript?
?-body testScript?
?-cleanup cleanupScript?
?-result expectedAnswer?
?-output expectedOutput?
?-errorOutput expectedError?
?-returnCodes codeList?
?-match mode?
The
name may be any string. It is conventional to choose a
name
according to the pattern:
For white-box (regression) tests, the target should be the name of the C
function or Tcl procedure being tested. For black-box tests, the target should
be the name of the feature being tested. Some conventions call for the names
of black-box tests to have the suffix
_bb. Related tests should share a
major number. As a test suite evolves, it is best to have the same test name
continue to correspond to the same test, so that it remains meaningful to say
things like “Test foo-1.3 passed in all releases up to 3.4, but began
failing in release 3.5.”
During evaluation of
test, the
name will be compared to the lists
of string matching patterns returned by
configure -match, and
configure -skip. The test will be run only if
name matches any
of the patterns from
configure -match and matches none of the patterns
from
configure -skip.
The
description should be a short textual description of the test. The
description is included in output produced by the test, typically test
failure messages. Good
description values should briefly explain the
purpose of the test to users of a test suite. The name of a Tcl or C function
being tested should be included in the description for regression tests. If
the test case exists to reproduce a bug, include the bug ID in the
description.
Valid attributes and associated values are:
- -constraints keywordList|expression
- The optional -constraints attribute can be list of one or more
keywords or an expression. If the -constraints value is a list of
keywords, each of these keywords should be the name of a constraint
defined by a call to testConstraint. If any of the listed
constraints is false or does not exist, the test is skipped. If the
-constraints value is an expression, that expression is evaluated.
If the expression evaluates to true, then the test is run. Note that the
expression form of -constraints may interfere with the operation of
configure -constraints and configure -limitconstraints, and
is not recommended. Appropriate constraints should be added to any tests
that should not always be run. That is, conditional evaluation of a test
should be accomplished by the -constraints option, not by
conditional evaluation of test. In that way, the same number of
tests are always reported by the test suite, though the number skipped may
change based on the testing environment. The default value is an empty
list. See TEST CONSTRAINTS below for a list of built-in constraints
and information on how to add your own constraints.
- -setup script
- The optional -setup attribute indicates a script that will
be run before the script indicated by the -body attribute. If
evaluation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
default value is an empty script.
- -body script
- The -body attribute indicates the script to run to carry out
the test. It must return a result that can be checked for correctness. If
evaluation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
default value is an empty script.
- -cleanup script
- The optional -cleanup attribute indicates a script that will
be run after the script indicated by the -body attribute. If
evaluation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
default value is an empty script.
- -match mode
- The -match attribute determines how expected answers supplied by
-result, -output, and -errorOutput are compared.
Valid values for mode are regexp, glob, exact,
and any value registered by a prior call to customMatch. The
default value is exact.
- -result expectedValue
- The -result attribute supplies the expectedValue against
which the return value from script will be compared. The default value is
an empty string.
- -output expectedValue
- The -output attribute supplies the expectedValue against
which any output sent to stdout or outputChannel during
evaluation of the script(s) will be compared. Note that only output
printed using ::puts is used for comparison. If -output is
not specified, output sent to stdout and outputChannel is
not processed for comparison.
- -errorOutput expectedValue
- The -errorOutput attribute supplies the expectedValue
against which any output sent to stderr or errorChannel
during evaluation of the script(s) will be compared. Note that only output
printed using ::puts is used for comparison. If -errorOutput
is not specified, output sent to stderr and errorChannel is
not processed for comparison.
- -returnCodes expectedCodeList
- The optional -returnCodes attribute supplies
expectedCodeList, a list of return codes that may be accepted from
evaluation of the -body script. If evaluation of the -body
script returns a code not in the expectedCodeList, the test fails.
All return codes known to return, in both numeric and symbolic
form, including extended return codes, are acceptable elements in the
expectedCodeList. Default value is “
ok”return.
To pass, a test must successfully evaluate its
-setup,
-body, and
-cleanup scripts. The return code of the
-body script and its
result must match expected values, and if specified, output and error data
from the test must match expected
-output and
-errorOutput
values. If any of these conditions are not met, then the test fails. Note that
all scripts are evaluated in the context of the caller of
test.
As long as
test is called with valid syntax and legal values for all
attributes, it will not raise an error. Test failures are instead reported as
output written to
outputChannel. In default operation, a successful
test produces no output. The output messages produced by
test are
controlled by the
configure -verbose option as described in
CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS below. Any output produced by the test scripts
themselves should be produced using
::puts to
outputChannel or
errorChannel, so that users of the test suite may easily capture output
with the
configure -outfile and
configure -errfile options, and
so that the
-output and
-errorOutput attributes work properly.
Constraints are used to determine whether or not a test should be skipped. Each
constraint has a name, which may be any string, and a boolean value. Each
test has a
-constraints value which is a list of constraint
names. There are two modes of constraint control. Most frequently, the default
mode is used, indicated by a setting of
configure -limitconstraints to
false. The test will run only if all constraints in the list are true-valued.
Thus, the
-constraints option of
test is a convenient, symbolic
way to define any conditions required for the test to be possible or
meaningful. For example, a
test with
-constraints unix will only
be run if the constraint
unix is true, which indicates the test suite
is being run on a Unix platform.
Each
test should include whatever
-constraints are required to
constrain it to run only where appropriate. Several constraints are
pre-defined in the
tcltest package, listed below. The registration of
user-defined constraints is performed by the
testConstraint command.
User-defined constraints may appear within a test file, or within the script
specified by the
configure -load or
configure -loadfile options.
The following is a list of constraints pre-defined by the
tcltest package
itself:
- singleTestInterp
- test can only be run if all test files are sourced into a single
interpreter
- unix
- test can only be run on any Unix platform
- win
- test can only be run on any Windows platform
- nt
- test can only be run on any Windows NT platform
- 95
- test can only be run on any Windows 95 platform
- 98
- test can only be run on any Windows 98 platform
- mac
- test can only be run on any Mac platform
- unixOrWin
- test can only be run on a Unix or Windows platform
- macOrWin
- test can only be run on a Mac or Windows platform
- macOrUnix
- test can only be run on a Mac or Unix platform
- tempNotWin
- test can not be run on Windows. This flag is used to temporarily disable a
test.
- tempNotMac
- test can not be run on a Mac. This flag is used to temporarily disable a
test.
- unixCrash
- test crashes if it is run on Unix. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- winCrash
- test crashes if it is run on Windows. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- macCrash
- test crashes if it is run on a Mac. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- emptyTest
- test is empty, and so not worth running, but it remains as a place-holder
for a test to be written in the future. This constraint has value false to
cause tests to be skipped unless the user specifies otherwise.
- knownBug
- test is known to fail and the bug is not yet fixed. This constraint has
value false to cause tests to be skipped unless the user specifies
otherwise.
- nonPortable
- test can only be run in some known development environment. Some tests are
inherently non-portable because they depend on things like word length,
file system configuration, window manager, etc. This constraint has value
false to cause tests to be skipped unless the user specifies
otherwise.
- userInteraction
- test requires interaction from the user. This constraint has value false
to causes tests to be skipped unless the user specifies otherwise.
- interactive
- test can only be run in if the interpreter is in interactive mode (when
the global tcl_interactive variable is set to 1).
- nonBlockFiles
- test can only be run if platform supports setting files into nonblocking
mode
- asyncPipeClose
- test can only be run if platform supports async flush and async close on a
pipe
- unixExecs
- test can only be run if this machine has Unix-style commands cat,
echo, sh, wc, rm, sleep, fgrep,
ps, chmod, and mkdir available
- hasIsoLocale
- test can only be run if can switch to an ISO locale
- root
- test can only run if Unix user is root
- notRoot
- test can only run if Unix user is not root
- eformat
- test can only run if app has a working version of sprintf with respect to
the “e” format of floating-point numbers.
- stdio
- test can only be run if interpreter can be opened as a
pipe.
The alternative mode of constraint control is enabled by setting
configure
-limitconstraints to true. With that configuration setting, all existing
constraints other than those in the constraint list returned by
configure
-constraints are set to false. When the value of
configure
-constraints is set, all those constraints are set to true. The effect is
that when both options
configure -constraints and
configure
-limitconstraints are in use, only those tests including only constraints
from the
configure -constraints list are run; all others are skipped.
For example, one might set up a configuration with
configure -constraints knownBug \
-limitconstraints true \
-verbose pass
to run exactly those tests that exercise known bugs, and discover whether any of
them pass, indicating the bug had been fixed.
The single command
runAllTests is evaluated to run an entire test suite,
spanning many files and directories. The configuration options of
tcltest control the precise operations. The
runAllTests command
begins by printing a summary of its configuration to
outputChannel.
Test files to be evaluated are sought in the directory
configure
-testdir. The list of files in that directory that match any of the
patterns in
configure -file and match none of the patterns in
configure -notfile is generated and sorted. Then each file will be
evaluated in turn. If
configure -singleproc is true, then each file
will be
sourced in the caller's context. If it is false, then a copy of
interpreter will be
exec'd to evaluate each file. The
multi-process operation is useful when testing can cause errors so severe that
a process terminates. Although such an error may terminate a child process
evaluating one file, the master process can continue with the rest of the test
suite. In multi-process operation, the configuration of
tcltest in the
master process is passed to the child processes as command line arguments,
with the exception of
configure -outfile. The
runAllTests
command in the master process collects all output from the child processes and
collates their results into one master report. Any reports of individual test
failures, or messages requested by a
configure -verbose setting are
passed directly on to
outputChannel by the master process.
After evaluating all selected test files, a summary of the results is printed to
outputChannel. The summary includes the total number of
tests
evaluated, broken down into those skipped, those passed, and those failed. The
summary also notes the number of files evaluated, and the names of any files
with failing tests or errors. A list of the constraints that caused tests to
be skipped, and the number of tests skipped for each is also printed. Also,
messages are printed if it appears that evaluation of a test file has caused
any temporary files to be left behind in
configure -tmpdir.
Having completed and summarized all selected test files,
runAllTests then
recursively acts on subdirectories of
configure -testdir. All
subdirectories that match any of the patterns in
configure -relateddir
and do not match any of the patterns in
configure -asidefromdir are
examined. If a file named
all.tcl is found in such a directory, it will
be
sourced in the caller's context. Whether or not an examined
directory contains an
all.tcl file, its subdirectories are also scanned
against the
configure -relateddir and
configure -asidefromdir
patterns. In this way, many directories in a directory tree can have all their
test files evaluated by a single
runAllTests command.
The
configure command is used to set and query the configurable options
of
tcltest. The valid options are:
- -singleproc boolean
- Controls whether or not runAllTests spawns a child process for each
test file. No spawning when boolean is true. Default value is
false.
- -debug level
- Sets the debug level to level, an integer value indicating how much
debugging information should be printed to stdout. Note that debug
messages always go to stdout, independent of the value of configure
-outfile. Default value is 0. Levels are defined as:
- 0
- Do not display any debug information.
- 1
- Display information regarding whether a test is skipped because it does
not match any of the tests that were specified using by configure
-match (userSpecifiedNonMatch) or matches any of the tests specified
by configure -skip (userSpecifiedSkip). Also print warnings about
possible lack of cleanup or balance in test files. Also print warnings
about any re-use of test names.
- 2
- Display the flag array parsed by the command line processor, the contents
of the ::env array, and all user-defined variables that exist in the
current namespace as they are used.
- 3
- Display information regarding what individual procs in the test harness
are doing.
- -verbose level
- Sets the type of output verbosity desired to level, a list of zero
or more of the elements body, pass, skip,
start, error and line. Default value is {body
error}. Levels are defined as:
- body (b)
- Display the body of failed tests
- pass (p)
- Print output when a test passes
- skip (s)
- Print output when a test is skipped
- start (t)
- Print output whenever a test starts
- error (e)
- Print errorInfo and errorCode, if they exist, when a test return code does
not match its expected return code
- line (l)
- Print source file line information of failed tests
The single letter abbreviations noted above are also recognized so that “
configure -verbose pt” is the same as “
configure
-verbose {pass start}”.
- -preservecore level
- Sets the core preservation level to level. This level determines
how stringent checks for core files are. Default value is 0. Levels are
defined as:
- 0
- No checking — do not check for core files at the end of each test
command, but do check for them in runAllTests after all test files
have been evaluated.
- 1
- Also check for core files at the end of each test command.
- 2
- Check for core files at all times described above, and save a copy of each
core file produced in configure -tmpdir.
- -limitconstraints boolean
- Sets the mode by which test honors constraints as described in
TESTS above. Default value is false.
- -constraints list
- Sets all the constraints in list to true. Also used in combination
with configure -limitconstraints true to control an alternative
constraint mode as described in TESTS above. Default value is an
empty list.
- -tmpdir directory
- Sets the temporary directory to be used by makeFile,
makeDirectory, viewFile, removeFile, and
removeDirectory as the default directory where temporary files and
directories created by test files should be created. Default value is
workingDirectory.
- -testdir directory
- Sets the directory searched by runAllTests for test files and
subdirectories. Default value is workingDirectory.
- -file patternList
- Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
test files to evaluate. Default value is “
*.test”.
- -notfile patternList
- Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
test files to skip. Default value is “ l.*.test”, so
that any SCCS lock files are skipped.
- -relateddir patternList
- Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
subdirectories to search for an all.tcl file. Default value is
“ *”.
- -asidefromdir patternList
- Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
subdirectories to skip when searching for an all.tcl file. Default
value is an empty list.
- -match patternList
- Set the list of patterns used by test to determine whether a test
should be run. Default value is “ *”.
- -skip patternList
- Set the list of patterns used by test to determine whether a test
should be skipped. Default value is an empty list.
- -load script
- Sets a script to be evaluated by loadTestedCommands. Default value
is an empty script.
- -loadfile filename
- Sets the filename from which to read a script to be evaluated by
loadTestedCommands. This is an alternative to -load. They
cannot be used together.
- -outfile filename
- Sets the file to which all output produced by tcltest should be written. A
file named filename will be opened for writing, and the
resulting channel will be set as the value of outputChannel.
- -errfile filename
- Sets the file to which all error output produced by tcltest should be
written. A file named filename will be opened for writing,
and the resulting channel will be set as the value of
errorChannel.
The fundamental element of a test suite is the individual
test command.
We begin with several examples.
- [1]
- Test of a script that returns normally.
test example-1.0 {normal return} {
format %s value
} value
- [2]
- Test of a script that requires context setup and cleanup. Note the bracing
and indenting style that avoids any need for line continuation.
test example-1.1 {test file existence} -setup {
set file [makeFile {} test]
} -body {
file exists $file
} -cleanup {
removeFile test
} -result 1
- [3]
- Test of a script that raises an error.
test example-1.2 {error return} -body {
error message
} -returnCodes error -result message
- [4]
- Test with a constraint.
test example-1.3 {user owns created files} -constraints {
unix
} -setup {
set file [makeFile {} test]
} -body {
file attributes $file -owner
} -cleanup {
removeFile test
} -result $::tcl_platform(user)
At the next higher layer of organization, several
test commands are
gathered together into a single test file. Test files should have names with
the
.test extension, because that is the default pattern used by
runAllTests to find test files. It is a good rule of thumb to have one
test file for each source code file of your project. It is good practice to
edit the test file and the source code file together, keeping tests
synchronized with code changes.
Most of the code in the test file should be the
test commands. Use
constraints to skip tests, rather than conditional evaluation of
test.
- [5]
- Recommended system for writing conditional tests, using constraints to
guard:
testConstraint X [expr $myRequirement]
test goodConditionalTest {} X {
# body
} result
- [6]
- Discouraged system for writing conditional tests, using if to
guard:
if $myRequirement {
test badConditionalTest {} {
#body
} result
}
Use the
-setup and
-cleanup options to establish and release all
context requirements of the test body. Do not make tests depend on prior tests
in the file. Those prior tests might be skipped. If several consecutive tests
require the same context, the appropriate setup and cleanup scripts may be
stored in variable for passing to each tests
-setup and
-cleanup
options. This is a better solution than performing setup outside of
test commands, because the setup will only be done if necessary, and
any errors during setup will be reported, and not cause the test file to
abort.
A test file should be able to be combined with other test files and not
interfere with them, even when
configure -singleproc 1 causes all files
to be evaluated in a common interpreter. A simple way to achieve this is to
have your tests define all their commands and variables in a namespace that is
deleted when the test file evaluation is complete. A good namespace to use is
a child namespace
test of the namespace of the module you are testing.
A test file should also be able to be evaluated directly as a script, not
depending on being called by a master
runAllTests. This means that each
test file should process command line arguments to give the tester all the
configuration control that
tcltest provides.
After all
tests in a test file, the command
cleanupTests should be
called.
- [7]
- Here is a sketch of a sample test file illustrating those points:
package require tcltest 2.2
eval ::tcltest::configure $argv
package require example
namespace eval ::example::test {
namespace import ::tcltest::*
testConstraint X [expr {...}]
variable SETUP {#common setup code}
variable CLEANUP {#common cleanup code}
test example-1 {} -setup $SETUP -body {
# First test
} -cleanup $CLEANUP -result {...}
test example-2 {} -constraints X -setup $SETUP -body {
# Second test; constrained
} -cleanup $CLEANUP -result {...}
test example-3 {} {
# Third test; no context required
} {...}
cleanupTests
}
namespace delete ::example::test
The next level of organization is a full test suite, made up of several test
files. One script is used to control the entire suite. The basic function of
this script is to call
runAllTests after doing any necessary setup.
This script is usually named
all.tcl because that is the default name
used by
runAllTests when combining multiple test suites into one
testing run.
- [8]
- Here is a sketch of a sample test suite master script:
package require Tcl 8.4
package require tcltest 2.2
package require example
::tcltest::configure -testdir \
[file dirname [file normalize [info script]]]
eval ::tcltest::configure $argv
::tcltest::runAllTests
A number of commands and variables in the
::tcltest namespace provided by
earlier releases of
tcltest have not been documented here. They are no
longer part of the supported public interface of
tcltest and should not
be used in new test suites. However, to continue to support existing test
suites written to the older interface specifications, many of those deprecated
commands and variables still work as before. For example, in many
circumstances,
configure will be automatically called shortly after
package require tcltest 2.1 succeeds with arguments from the variable
::argv. This is to support test suites that depend on the old behavior
that
tcltest was automatically configured from command line arguments.
New test files should not depend on this, but should explicitly include
eval ::tcltest::configure $::argv
to establish a configuration from command line arguments.
There are two known issues related to nested evaluations of
test. The
first issue relates to the stack level in which test scripts are executed.
Tests nested within other tests may be executed at the same stack level as the
outermost test. For example, in the following code:
test level-1.1 {level 1} {
-body {
test level-2.1 {level 2} {
}
}
}
any script executed in level-2.1 may be executed at the same stack level as the
script defined for level-1.1.
In addition, while two
tests have been run, results will only be reported
by
cleanupTests for tests at the same level as test level-1.1. However,
test results for all tests run prior to level-1.1 will be available when test
level-2.1 runs. What this means is that if you try to access the test results
for test level-2.1, it will may say that “m” tests have run,
“n” tests have been skipped, “o” tests have passed
and “p” tests have failed, where “m”,
“n”, “o”, and “p” refer to tests
that were run at the same test level as test level-1.1.
Implementation of output and error comparison in the test command depends on
usage of ::puts in your application code. Output is intercepted by redefining
the ::puts command while the defined test script is being run. Errors thrown
by C procedures or printed directly from C applications will not be caught by
the test command. Therefore, usage of the
-output and
-errorOutput options to
test is useful only for pure Tcl
applications that use
::puts to produce output.
test, test harness, test suite