1 The Automake test suite
15 By default, verbose output of a test 't/foo.sh' or 't/foo.tap' is retained
16 in the log file 't/foo.log'. Also, a summary log is created in the file
17 'test-suite.log' (in the top-level directory).
19 You can use '-jN' for faster completion (it even helps on a uniprocessor
20 system, due to unavoidable sleep delays, as noted below):
24 To rerun only failed tests:
28 To run only tests that are newer than their last results:
30 make -k check RECHECK_LOGS=
32 To run only selected tests:
34 make -k check TESTS="t/foo.sh t/bar.tap" (GNU make)
35 env TESTS="t/foo.sh t/bar.tap" make -e -k check (non-GNU make)
37 To run the tests in cross-compilation mode, you should first configure
38 the automake source tree to a cross-compilation setup. For example, to
39 run with a Linux-to-MinGW cross compiler, you will need something like
42 ./configure --host i586-mingw32msvc --build i686-pc-linux-gnu
44 To avoid possible spurious error, you really have to *explicitly* specify
45 '--build' in addition to '--host'; the 'lib/config.guess' script can help
46 determine the correct value to pass to '--build'.
47 Then you can just run the testsuite in the usual way, and the test cases
48 using a compiler should automatically use a cross-compilation setup.
56 XFAIL - expected failure
60 XPASS - unexpected success
63 SKIP - skipped tests (third party tools not available)
64 ERROR - some unexpected error condition
70 There are two kinds of tests in the Automake testsuite (both implemented
71 as shell scripts). The scripts with the '.sh' suffix are "simple"
72 tests, their outcome completely determined by their exit status. Those
73 with the '.tap' suffix use the TAP protocol. If you want to run a test
74 by hand, you can do so directly if it is a simple test:
78 (it will be verbose by default), while if it is a TAP test you can pass
79 it to your preferred TAP runner, as in e.g.:
81 prove --verbose --merge ./t/add-missing.tap
83 The tests can also be run directly in a VPATH build, as with:
85 /path/to/srcdir/t/nogzip.sh
86 prove --verbose --merge /path/to/srcdir/t/add-missing.tap
92 By default, the tests are run by the $SHELL detected at configure
93 time. They also take care to re-execute themselves with that shell,
94 unless told not to. So, to run the tests with a different shell, say
95 '/path/to/another/sh', the user must use:
97 AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no /path/to/another/sh ./t/foo.sh
98 AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no prove -v -e /path/to/another/sh ./t/bar.tap
100 to run a test directly, and:
102 make check LOG_COMPILER=/path/to/sh (GNU make)
103 LOG_COMPILER=/path/to/sh make -e check (non-GNU make)
105 to run the test(s) through the makefile test driver.
107 The test scripts are written with portability in mind, so that they
108 should run with any decent Bourne-compatible shell.
110 However, some care must be used with Zsh, since, when not directly
111 started in Bourne-compatibility mode, it has some incompatibilities
112 in the handling of $0 which conflict with our usage. Our testsuite
113 can automatically work around these incompatibilities when a version
114 4.3 or later of Zsh is used, but unfortunately not when an older
115 version of Zsh is used. Thus, if you want to run a test script, say
116 'foo.sh', with Zsh 4.2, you *can't* simply do "zsh foo.sh", but
117 you *must* resort to:
119 AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no zsh -o no_function_argzero foo.sh
121 Note that this problem does not occur if Zsh is executed through
122 a symlink with a basename of 'sh', since in that case Zsh starts
123 in Bourne compatibility mode. So you should be perfectly safe
124 when /bin/sh is Zsh, even a it's version < 4.3.
130 Send verbose output, i.e., the contents of test-suite.log, of failing
131 tests to <bug-automake@gnu.org>, along with the usual version numbers
132 (which Automake, which Autoconf, which operating system, which make
133 version, which shell, etc.)
144 If you plan to fix a bug, write the test case first. This way you'll
145 make sure the test catches the bug, and that it succeeds once you have
148 Add a copyright/license paragraph.
150 Explain what the test does.
152 Cite the PR number (if any), and the original reporter (if any), so
153 we can find or ask for information if needed.
155 If a test checks examples or idioms given in the documentation, make
156 sure the documentation reference them appropriately in comments, as in:
157 @c Keep in sync with autodist-config-headers.sh
162 Use "required=..." for required tools. Do not explicitly require
163 tools which can be taken for granted because they're listed in the
164 GNU Coding Standards (for example, 'gzip').
166 Include ./defs in every test script (see existing tests for examples
169 Use the 'skip_' function to skip tests, with a meaningful message if
170 possible. Where convenient, use the 'warn_' function to print generic
171 warnings, the 'fail_' function for test failures, and the 'fatal_'
172 function for hard errors. In case a hard error is due to a failed
173 set-up of a test scenario, you can use the 'framework_fail_' function
176 For tests that use the 'parallel-tests' Automake option, set the shell
177 variable 'am_parallel_tests' to "yes" before including ./defs. For
178 tests that are *not* meant to work with the 'parallel-tests' Automake
179 option (these should be very very few), set the shell variable
180 'am_parallel_tests' to "no" before including ./defs.
182 Some tests in the Automake testsuite are auto-generated; those tests
183 might have custom extensions, but their basename (that is, with such
184 extension stripped) is expected to end with "-w" string, optionally
185 followed by decimal digits. For example, the name of a valid
186 auto-generated test can be 'color-w.sh' or 'tap-signal-w09.tap'.
187 Please don't name hand-written tests in a way that could cause them
188 to be confused with auto-generated tests; for example, 'u-v-w.sh'
189 or 'option-w0.tap' are *not* valid name for hand-written tests.
191 ./defs brings in some commonly required files, and sets a skeleton
192 configure.ac. If possible, append to this file. In some cases
193 you'll have to overwrite it, but this should be the exception. Note
194 that configure.ac registers Makefile.in but do not output anything by
195 default. If you need ./configure to create Makefile, append AC_OUTPUT
196 to configure.ac. In case you don't want ./defs to pre-populate your
197 test directory (which is a rare occurrence), set the 'am_create_testdir'
198 shell variable to "empty" before sourcing ./defs.
200 By default, the testcases are run with the errexit shell flag on,
201 to make it easier to catch failures you might not have thought of.
202 If this is undesirable in some testcase, you can use "set +e" to
203 disable the errexit flag (but please do so only if you have a very
206 End the test script with a ":" or "Exit 0". Otherwise, when somebody
207 changes the test by adding a failing command after the last command,
208 the test will spuriously fail because $? is nonzero at the end. Note
209 that this is relevant even if the errexit shell flag is on, in case
210 the test contains commands like "grep ... Makefile.in && Exit 1" (and
211 there are indeed a lot of such tests).
213 Use $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE, $AUTOCONF, $AUTOUPDATE, $AUTOHEADER,
214 $PERL, $MAKE, $EGREP, and $FGREP, instead of the corresponding
217 Use $sleep when you have to make sure that some file is newer
220 Use cat or grep or similar commands to display (part of) files that
221 may be interesting for debugging, so that when a user send a verbose
222 output we don't have to ask him for more details. Display stderr
223 output on the stderr file descriptor. If some redirected command is
224 likely to fail, display its output even in the failure case, before
227 Use 'Exit' rather than 'exit' to abort for leave early from a test
230 Use '$PATH_SEPARATOR', not hard-coded ':', as the separator of
233 It's more important to make sure that a feature works, than make
234 sure that Automake's output looks correct. It might look correct
235 and still fail to work. In other words, prefer running 'make' over
236 grepping Makefile.in (or do both).
238 If you run $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE or $AUTOCONF several times in the
239 same test and change configure.ac by the meantime, do
240 rm -rf autom4te*.cache
241 before the following runs. On fast machines the new configure.ac
242 could otherwise have the same timestamp as the old autom4te.cache.
244 Use filenames with two consecutive spaces when testing that some
245 code preserves filenames with spaces. This will catch errors like
246 `echo $filename | ...`.
248 Make sure your test script can be used to faithfully check an
249 installed version of automake (as with "make installcheck"). For
250 example, if you need to copy or grep an automake-provided script,
251 do not assume that they can be found in the '$top_srcdir/lib'
252 directory, but use '$am_scriptdir' instead. The complete list of
253 such "$am_...dir" variables can be found in the 'defs-static.in'
256 When writing input for lex, include the following in the definitions
259 #define YY_NO_UNISTD_H 1
261 to accommodate non-ANSI systems, since GNU flex generates code that
262 includes unistd.h otherwise. Also add:
263 int isatty (int fd) { return 0; }
264 to the definitions section if the generated code is to be compiled
265 by a C++ compiler, for similar reasons (i.e., the isatty(3) function
266 from that same unistd.h header would be required otherwise).
268 Before commit: make sure the test is executable, add the tests to
269 TESTS in Makefile.am, add it to XFAIL_TESTS in addition if needed,
270 write a ChangeLog entry, send the diff to <automake-patches@gnu.org>.
276 Do not test an Automake error with "$AUTOMAKE && Exit 1", or in three
277 years we'll discover that this test failed for some other bogus reason.
278 This happened many times. Better use something like
280 grep 'expected diagnostic' stderr
281 (Note this doesn't prevent the test from failing for another reason,
282 but at least it makes sure the original error is still here).
284 Do not override Makefile variables using make arguments, as in e.g.:
285 $MAKE prefix=/opt install
286 This is not portable for recursive targets (targets that call a
287 sub-make may not pass "prefix=/opt" along). Use the following
289 prefix=/opt $MAKE -e install