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 global 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:
target-majorNum.minorNum
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, which must return a result that can be checked for correctness.
If evaluation of script raises an error, the test will fail
(unless the -returnCodes option is used to state that an error
is expected).
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
the global puts command 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 the global puts command 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
- This test can only be run if all test files are sourced into a single
interpreter.
- unix
- This test can only be run on any Unix platform.
- win
- This test can only be run on any Windows platform.
- nt
- This test can only be run on any Windows NT platform.
- 95
- This test can only be run on any Windows 95 platform.
- 98
- This test can only be run on any Windows 98 platform.
- mac
- This test can only be run on any Mac platform.
- unixOrWin
- This test can only be run on a Unix or Windows platform.
- macOrWin
- This test can only be run on a Mac or Windows platform.
- macOrUnix
- This test can only be run on a Mac or Unix platform.
- tempNotWin
- This test can not be run on Windows. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- tempNotMac
- This test can not be run on a Mac. This flag is used
to temporarily disable a test.
- unixCrash
- This test crashes if it is run on Unix. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- winCrash
- This test crashes if it is run on Windows. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- macCrash
- This test crashes if it is run on a Mac. This flag is used to temporarily
disable a test.
- emptyTest
- This 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
- This 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
- This 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
- This test requires interaction from the user. This constraint has
value false to causes tests to be skipped unless the user specifies
otherwise.
- interactive
- This test can only be run in if the interpreter is in interactive mode
(when the global tcl_interactive variable is set to 1).
- nonBlockFiles
- This test can only be run if platform supports setting files into
nonblocking mode.
- asyncPipeClose
- This test can only be run if platform supports async flush and async close
on a pipe.
- unixExecs
- This 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
- This test can only be run if can switch to an ISO locale.
- root
- This test can only run if Unix user is root.
- notRoot
- This test can only run if Unix user is not root.
- eformat
- This test can only run if app has a working version of sprintf with respect
to the
"e" format of floating-point numbers.
- stdio
- This 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 global 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.
- Test of a script that returns normally.
test example-1.0 {normal return} {
format %s value
} value
- 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
- Test of a script that raises an error.
test example-1.2 {error return} -body {
error message
} -returnCodes error -result message
- 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.
- Recommended system for writing conditional tests, using constraints to
guard:
testConstraint X [expr $myRequirement]
test goodConditionalTest {} X {
# body
} result
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 $::argv
or
::tcltest::configure {*}$::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 global 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