NAME¶
Test::Builder::Tester - test testsuites that have been built with Test::Builder
SYNOPSIS¶
use Test::Builder::Tester tests => 1;
use Test::More;
test_out("not ok 1 - foo");
test_fail(+1);
fail("foo");
test_test("fail works");
DESCRIPTION¶
A module that helps you test testing modules that are built with
Test::Builder.
The testing system is designed to be used by performing a three step process for
each test you wish to test. This process starts with using
"test_out" and "test_err" in advance to declare what the
testsuite you are testing will output with
Test::Builder to stdout and
stderr.
You then can run the test(s) from your test suite that call
Test::Builder. At this point the output of
Test::Builder is
safely captured by
Test::Builder::Tester rather than being interpreted
as real test output.
The final stage is to call "test_test" that will simply compare what
you predeclared to what
Test::Builder actually outputted, and report
the results back with a "ok" or "not ok" (with debugging)
to the normal output.
Functions¶
These are the six methods that are exported as default.
- test_out
- test_err
- Procedures for predeclaring the output that your test suite
is expected to produce until "test_test" is called. These
procedures automatically assume that each line terminates with
"\n". So
test_out("ok 1","ok 2");
is the same as
test_out("ok 1\nok 2");
which is even the same as
test_out("ok 1");
test_out("ok 2");
Once "test_out" or "test_err" (or "test_fail"
or "test_diag") have been called, all further output from
Test::Builder will be captured by Test::Builder::Tester.
This means that you will not be able perform further tests to the normal
output in the normal way until you call "test_test" (well,
unless you manually meddle with the output filehandles)
- test_fail
- Because the standard failure message that
Test::Builder produces whenever a test fails will be a common
occurrence in your test error output, and because it has changed between
Test::Builder versions, rather than forcing you to call
"test_err" with the string all the time like so
test_err("# Failed test ($0 at line ".line_num(+1).")");
"test_fail" exists as a convenience function that can be called
instead. It takes one argument, the offset from the current line that the
line that causes the fail is on.
test_fail(+1);
This means that the example in the synopsis could be rewritten more simply
as:
test_out("not ok 1 - foo");
test_fail(+1);
fail("foo");
test_test("fail works");
- test_diag
- As most of the remaining expected output to the error
stream will be created by Test::Builder's "diag" function,
Test::Builder::Tester provides a convenience function
"test_diag" that you can use instead of "test_err".
The "test_diag" function prepends comment hashes and spacing to
the start and newlines to the end of the expected output passed to it and
adds it to the list of expected error output. So, instead of writing
test_err("# Couldn't open file");
you can write
test_diag("Couldn't open file");
Remember that Test::Builder's diag function will not add newlines to
the end of output and test_diag will. So to check
Test::Builder->new->diag("foo\n","bar\n");
You would do
test_diag("foo","bar")
without the newlines.
- test_test
- Actually performs the output check testing the tests,
comparing the data (with "eq") that we have captured from
Test::Builder against that that was declared with
"test_out" and "test_err".
This takes name/value pairs that effect how the test is run.
- title (synonym 'name', 'label')
- The name of the test that will be displayed after the
"ok" or "not ok".
- skip_out
- Setting this to a true value will cause the test to ignore
if the output sent by the test to the output stream does not match that
declared with "test_out".
- skip_err
- Setting this to a true value will cause the test to ignore
if the output sent by the test to the error stream does not match that
declared with "test_err".
As a convenience, if only one argument is passed then this argument is assumed
to be the name of the test (as in the above examples.)
Once "test_test" has been run test output will be redirected back to
the original filehandles that
Test::Builder was connected to (probably
STDOUT and STDERR,) meaning any further tests you run will function normally
and cause success/errors for
Test::Harness.
- line_num
- A utility function that returns the line number that the
function was called on. You can pass it an offset which will be added to
the result. This is very useful for working out the correct text of
diagnostic functions that contain line numbers.
Essentially this is the same as the "__LINE__" macro, but the
"line_num(+3)" idiom is arguably nicer.
In addition to the six exported functions there exists one function that can
only be accessed with a fully qualified function call.
- color
- When "test_test" is called and the output that
your tests generate does not match that which you declared,
"test_test" will print out debug information showing the two
conflicting versions. As this output itself is debug information it can be
confusing which part of the output is from "test_test" and which
was the original output from your original tests. Also, it may be hard to
spot things like extraneous whitespace at the end of lines that may cause
your test to fail even though the output looks similar.
To assist you "test_test" can colour the background of the debug
information to disambiguate the different types of output. The debug
output will have its background coloured green and red. The green part
represents the text which is the same between the executed and actual
output, the red shows which part differs.
The "color" function determines if colouring should occur or not.
Passing it a true or false value will enable or disable colouring
respectively, and the function called with no argument will return the
current setting.
To enable colouring from the command line, you can use the
Text::Builder::Tester::Color module like so:
perl -Mlib=Text::Builder::Tester::Color test.t
Or by including the Test::Builder::Tester::Color module directly in
the PERL5LIB.
BUGS¶
Calls "<Test::Builder-"no_ending>> turning off the ending
tests. This is needed as otherwise it will trip out because we've run more
tests than we strictly should have and it'll register any failures we had that
we were testing for as real failures.
The color function doesn't work unless
Term::ANSIColor is compatible with
your terminal.
Bugs (and requests for new features) can be reported to the author though the
CPAN RT system:
<
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Test-Builder-Tester>
AUTHOR¶
Copyright Mark Fowler <mark@twoshortplanks.com> 2002, 2004.
Some code taken from
Test::More and
Test::Catch, written by by
Michael G Schwern <schwern@pobox.com>. Hence, those parts Copyright
Micheal G Schwern 2001. Used and distributed with permission.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.
NOTES¶
Thanks to Richard Clamp <richardc@unixbeard.net> for letting me use his
testing system to try this module out on.
SEE ALSO¶
Test::Builder, Test::Builder::Tester::Color, Test::More.