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. However, it is
109 worth nothing that older versions of Zsh (pre-4.3) exhibited several
110 bugs and incompatibilities with our uses, and are thus not supported
111 for running Automake's test scripts.
117 Send verbose output, i.e., the contents of test-suite.log, of failing
118 tests to <bug-automake@gnu.org>, along with the usual version numbers
119 (which Automake, which Autoconf, which operating system, which make
120 version, which shell, etc.)
127 * If you plan to fix a bug, write the test case first. This way you'll
128 make sure the test catches the bug, and that it succeeds once you have
131 * Add a copyright/license paragraph.
133 * Explain what the test does, i.e., which features it checks, which
134 invariants it verifies, or what bugs/issues it guard against.
136 * Cite the PR number (if any), and the original reporter (if any), so
137 we can find or ask for information if needed.
139 * If a test checks examples or idioms given in the documentation, make
140 sure the documentation reference them appropriately in comments, as
143 @c Keep in sync with autodist-config-headers.sh
148 * Use "required=..." for required tools. Do not explicitly require
149 tools which can be taken for granted because they're listed in the
150 GNU Coding Standards (for example, 'gzip').
152 * Include ./defs in every test script (see existing tests for examples
155 * Use the 'skip_' function to skip tests, with a meaningful message if
156 possible. Where convenient, use the 'warn_' function to print generic
157 warnings, the 'fail_' function for test failures, and the 'fatal_'
158 function for hard errors. In case a hard error is due to a failed
159 set-up of a test scenario, you can use the 'framework_fail_' function
162 * For those tests checking the Automake-provided test harnesses that
163 are expected to work also when the 'serial-tests' Automake option
164 is used (thus causing the serial testsuite harness to be used in the
165 generated Makefile), place a line containing "try-with-serial-tests"
166 somewhere in the file (usually in a comment).
167 That will ensure that the 'gen-testsuite-part' script generates a
168 sibling of that test which uses the serial harness instead of the
169 parallel one. For those tests that are *not* meant to work with the
170 parallel testsuite harness at all (these should be very very few),
171 set the shell variable 'am_serial_tests' to "yes" before including
174 * Some tests in the Automake testsuite are auto-generated; those tests
175 might have custom extensions, but their basename (that is, with such
176 extension stripped) is expected to end with "-w" string, optionally
177 followed by decimal digits. For example, the name of a valid
178 auto-generated test can be 'color-w.sh' or 'tap-signal-w09.tap'.
179 Please don't name hand-written tests in a way that could cause them
180 to be confused with auto-generated tests; for example, 'u-v-w.sh'
181 or 'option-w0.tap' are *not* valid name for hand-written tests.
183 * ./defs brings in some commonly required files, and sets a skeleton
184 configure.ac. If possible, append to this file. In some cases
185 you'll have to overwrite it, but this should be the exception. Note
186 that configure.ac registers Makefile.in but do not output anything by
187 default. If you need ./configure to create Makefile, append AC_OUTPUT
188 to configure.ac. In case you don't want ./defs to pre-populate your
189 test directory (which is a rare occurrence), set the 'am_create_testdir'
190 shell variable to "empty" before sourcing ./defs.
192 * By default, the testcases are run with the errexit shell flag on,
193 to make it easier to catch failures you might not have thought of.
194 If this is undesirable in some testcase, you can use "set +e" to
195 disable the errexit flag (but please do so only if you have a very
198 * End the test script with a ':' command. Otherwise, when somebody
199 changes the test by adding a failing command after the last command,
200 the test will spuriously fail because '$?' is nonzero at the end.
201 Note that this is relevant even if the errexit shell flag is on, in
202 case the test contains commands like "grep ... Makefile.in && Exit 1"
203 (and there are indeed a lot of such tests).
205 * Use $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE, $AUTOCONF, $AUTOUPDATE, $AUTOHEADER,
206 $PERL, $MAKE, $EGREP, and $FGREP, instead of the corresponding
209 * Use '$sleep' when you have to make sure that some file is newer
212 * Use cat or grep or similar commands to display (part of) files that
213 may be interesting for debugging, so that when a user send a verbose
214 output we don't have to ask him for more details. Display stderr
215 output on the stderr file descriptor. If some redirected command is
216 likely to fail, display its output even in the failure case, before
219 * Use 'Exit' rather than 'exit' to abort for leave early from a test
222 * Use '$PATH_SEPARATOR', not hard-coded ':', as the separator of
225 * It's more important to make sure that a feature works, than make
226 sure that Automake's output looks correct. It might look correct
227 and still fail to work. In other words, prefer running 'make' over
228 grepping Makefile.in (or do both).
230 * If you run $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE or $AUTOCONF several times in the
231 same test and change configure.ac by the meantime, do
233 rm -rf autom4te*.cache
235 before the following runs. On fast machines the new configure.ac
236 could otherwise have the same timestamp as the old autom4te.cache.
238 * Use filenames with two consecutive spaces when testing that some
239 code preserves filenames with spaces. This will catch errors like
240 `echo $filename | ...`.
242 * Make sure your test script can be used to faithfully check an
243 installed version of automake (as with "make installcheck"). For
244 example, if you need to copy or grep an automake-provided script,
245 do not assume that they can be found in the '$top_srcdir/lib'
246 directory, but use '$am_scriptdir' instead. The complete list of
247 such "$am_...dir" variables can be found in the 'defs-static.in'
250 * When writing input for lex, include the following in the definitions
254 #define YY_NO_UNISTD_H 1
257 to accommodate non-ANSI systems, since GNU flex generates code that
258 includes unistd.h otherwise. Also add:
260 int isatty (int fd) { return 0; }
262 to the definitions section if the generated code is to be compiled
263 by a C++ compiler, for similar reasons (i.e., the isatty(3) function
264 from that same unistd.h header would be required otherwise).
266 * Before commit: make sure the test is executable, add the tests to
267 TESTS in Makefile.am, add it to XFAIL_TESTS in addition if needed,
268 write a ChangeLog entry, send the diff to <automake-patches@gnu.org>.
270 * In test scripts, prefer using POSIX constructs over their old
271 Bourne-only equivalents:
273 - use $(...), not `...`, for command substitution;
274 - use $((...), not `expr ...`, for arithmetic processing;
275 - liberally use '!' to invert the exit status of a command, e.g.,
276 in idioms like "if ! CMD; then ...", instead of relying on clumsy
277 paraphrases like "if CMD; then :; else ...".
278 - prefer use of ${param%pattern} and ${param#pattern} parameter
279 expansions over processing by 'sed' or 'expr'.
281 * Note however that, when writing Makefile recipes or shell code in a
282 configure.ac, you should still use `...` instead, because the Autoconf
283 generated configure scripts do not ensure they will find a truly POSIX
284 shell (even though they will prefer and use it *if* it's found).
286 * Do not test an Automake error with "$AUTOMAKE && Exit 1", or in three
287 years we'll discover that this test failed for some other bogus reason.
288 This happened many times. Better use something like
291 grep 'expected diagnostic' stderr
293 Note this doesn't prevent the test from failing for another reason,
294 but at least it makes sure the original error is still here.
296 * Do not override Makefile variables using make arguments, as in e.g.:
298 $MAKE prefix=/opt install
300 This is not portable for recursive targets (targets that call a
301 sub-make may not pass "prefix=/opt" along). Use the following
304 prefix=/opt $MAKE -e install