There are two kinds of tests in the Automake testsuite (both implemented
as shell scripts). The scripts with the '.sh' suffix are "simple"
tests, their outcome completely determined by their exit status. Those
- with the '.tap' suffix use the TAP protocol. If you want to run a test
- by hand, you can do so directly if it is a simple test:
+ with the '.tap' suffix use the TAP protocol.
- ./t/nogzip.sh
+ If you want to run a test by hand, you should be able to do so using the
+ 'runtest' script provided in the Automake distribution:
- (it will be verbose by default), while if it is a TAP test you can pass
- it to your preferred TAP runner, as in e.g.:
+ ./runtest t/nogzip.sh
+ ./runtest t/add-missing.tap
- prove --verbose --merge ./t/add-missing.tap
-
- The tests can also be run directly in a VPATH build, as with:
-
- /path/to/srcdir/t/nogzip.sh
- prove --verbose --merge /path/to/srcdir/t/add-missing.tap
+ This will run the test using the correct shell, and should also work in
+ VPATH builds. Note that, to run the TAP tests this way, you'll need to
+ have the prove(1) utility available in $PATH.
Supported shells
----------------
- By default, the tests are run by the $SHELL detected at configure
- time. They also take care to re-execute themselves with that shell,
- unless told not to. So, to run the tests with a different shell, say
- '/path/to/another/sh', the user must use:
-
- AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no /path/to/another/sh ./t/foo.sh
- AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no prove -v -e /path/to/another/sh ./t/bar.tap
-
- to run a test directly, and:
-
- make check LOG_COMPILER=/path/to/sh (GNU make)
- LOG_COMPILER=/path/to/sh make -e check (non-GNU make)
-
- to run the test(s) through the makefile test driver.
-
- The test scripts are written with portability in mind, so that they
- should run with any decent Bourne-compatible shell.
+ By default, the tests are run by a proper shell detected at configure
+ time. Here is how you can run the tests with a different shell, say
+ '/bin/my-sh':
- However, some care must be used with Zsh, since, when not directly
- started in Bourne-compatibility mode, it has some incompatibilities
- in the handling of $0 which conflict with our usage. Our testsuite
- can automatically work around these incompatibilities when a version
- 4.3 or later of Zsh is used, but unfortunately not when an older
- version of Zsh is used. Thus, if you want to run a test script, say
- 'foo.sh', with Zsh 4.2, you *can't* simply do "zsh foo.sh", but
- you *must* resort to:
+ # Running through the makefile test driver.
+ make check AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL=/bin/my-sh (GNU make)
+ AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL=/bin/my-sh make -e check (non-GNU make)
- AM_TESTS_REEXEC=no zsh -o no_function_argzero foo.sh
+ # Run a test directly from the command line.
+ AM_TEST_RUNNER_SHELL=/bin/my-sh ./runtest t/foo.sh
- Note that this problem does not occur if Zsh is executed through
- a symlink with a basename of 'sh', since in that case Zsh starts
- in Bourne compatibility mode. So you should be perfectly safe
- when /bin/sh is Zsh, even a it's version < 4.3.
+ The test scripts are written with portability in mind, and should run
+ with any decent POSIX shell. However, it is worth nothing that older
+ versions of Zsh (pre-4.3) exhibited several bugs and incompatibilities
+ with our uses, and are thus not supported for running Automake's test
+ scripts.
Reporting failures
Writing test cases
==================
-
-Do
---
-
- If you plan to fix a bug, write the test case first. This way you'll
+* If you plan to fix a bug, write the test case first. This way you'll
make sure the test catches the bug, and that it succeeds once you have
fixed the bug.
- Add a copyright/license paragraph.
+* Add a copyright/license paragraph.
- Explain what the test does.
+* Explain what the test does, i.e., which features it checks, which
+ invariants it verifies, or what bugs/issues it guard against.
- Cite the PR number (if any), and the original reporter (if any), so
+* Cite the PR number (if any), and the original reporter (if any), so
we can find or ask for information if needed.
- If a test checks examples or idioms given in the documentation, make
- sure the documentation reference them appropriately in comments, as in:
+* If a test checks examples or idioms given in the documentation, make
+ sure the documentation reference them appropriately in comments, as
+ with:
+
@c Keep in sync with autodist-config-headers.sh
@example
...
@end example
- Use "required=..." for required tools. Do not explicitly require
+* Use "required=..." for required tools. Do not explicitly require
tools which can be taken for granted because they're listed in the
GNU Coding Standards (for example, 'gzip').
- Include ./defs in every test script (see existing tests for examples
- of how to do this).
+* Include 'test-init.sh' in every test script (see existing tests for
+ examples of how to do this).
- Use the 'skip_' function to skip tests, with a meaningful message if
+* Use the 'skip_' function to skip tests, with a meaningful message if
possible. Where convenient, use the 'warn_' function to print generic
warnings, the 'fail_' function for test failures, and the 'fatal_'
function for hard errors. In case a hard error is due to a failed
set-up of a test scenario, you can use the 'framework_fail_' function
instead.
- For those tests checking the Automake-provided test harnesses that are
- expected to work also when the 'serial-tests' Automake option is used
- (thus causing the serial testsuite harness to be used in the generated
- Makefile), place a line containing "try-with-serial-tests" somewhere
- in the file. That will ensure that the 'gen-testsuite-part' script
- generates a sibling of that test which uses the serial harness instead
- of the parallel one. For those tests that are *not* meant to work with
- the parallel testsuite harness at all (these should be very very few),
+* For those tests checking the Automake-provided test harnesses that
+ are expected to work also when the 'serial-tests' Automake option
+ is used (thus causing the serial testsuite harness to be used in the
+ generated Makefile), place a line containing "try-with-serial-tests"
+ somewhere in the file (usually in a comment).
+ That will ensure that the 'gen-testsuite-part' script generates a
+ sibling of that test which uses the serial harness instead of the
+ parallel one. For those tests that are *not* meant to work with the
+ parallel testsuite harness at all (these should be very very few),
set the shell variable 'am_serial_tests' to "yes" before including
- ./defs.
+ test-init.sh.
- Some tests in the Automake testsuite are auto-generated; those tests
+* Some tests in the Automake testsuite are auto-generated; those tests
might have custom extensions, but their basename (that is, with such
extension stripped) is expected to end with "-w" string, optionally
followed by decimal digits. For example, the name of a valid
to be confused with auto-generated tests; for example, 'u-v-w.sh'
or 'option-w0.tap' are *not* valid name for hand-written tests.
- ./defs brings in some commonly required files, and sets a skeleton
- configure.ac. If possible, append to this file. In some cases
- you'll have to overwrite it, but this should be the exception. Note
- that configure.ac registers Makefile.in but do not output anything by
+* test-init.sh brings in some commonly required files, and sets a skeleton
+ configure.ac. If possible, append to this file. In some cases you'll
+ have to overwrite it, but this should be the exception. Note that
+ configure.ac registers Makefile.in but do not output anything by
default. If you need ./configure to create Makefile, append AC_OUTPUT
- to configure.ac. In case you don't want ./defs to pre-populate your
- test directory (which is a rare occurrence), set the 'am_create_testdir'
- shell variable to "empty" before sourcing ./defs.
+ to configure.ac. In case you don't want your test directory to be
+ pre-populate by test-init.sh (this should be a rare occurrence), set
+ the 'am_create_testdir' shell variable to "empty" before sourcing
+ test-init.sh.
- By default, the testcases are run with the errexit shell flag on,
+* By default, the testcases are run with the errexit shell flag on,
to make it easier to catch failures you might not have thought of.
If this is undesirable in some testcase, you can use "set +e" to
disable the errexit flag (but please do so only if you have a very
good reason).
- End the test script with a ":" or "Exit 0". Otherwise, when somebody
+* End the test script with a ':' command. Otherwise, when somebody
changes the test by adding a failing command after the last command,
- the test will spuriously fail because $? is nonzero at the end. Note
- that this is relevant even if the errexit shell flag is on, in case
- the test contains commands like "grep ... Makefile.in && Exit 1" (and
- there are indeed a lot of such tests).
+ the test will spuriously fail because '$?' is nonzero at the end.
+ Note that this is relevant even if the errexit shell flag is on, in
+ case the test contains commands like "grep ... Makefile.in && exit 1"
+ (and there are indeed a lot of such tests).
- Use $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE, $AUTOCONF, $AUTOUPDATE, $AUTOHEADER,
+* Use $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE, $AUTOCONF, $AUTOUPDATE, $AUTOHEADER,
$PERL, $MAKE, $EGREP, and $FGREP, instead of the corresponding
commands.
- Use $sleep when you have to make sure that some file is newer
+* When you want to redirect the output from a make invocation, use the
+ 'run_make' function rather than calling $MAKE directly. Not only is
+ this more idiomatic, but it also avoid possible spurious racy failures
+ when the make invocations in the testsuite are run in parallel mode
+ (as with "make check AM_TESTSUITE_MAKE='make -j4"').
+
+* Do not override Makefile variables using make arguments, as in e.g.:
+
+ $MAKE prefix=/opt install # BAD
+
+ This is not portable for recursive targets (with non-GNU make,
+ targets that call a sub-make may not pass "prefix=/opt" along).
+ Instead, use the 'run_make' function, which automatically uses
+ the AM_MAKEFLAGS to propagate the variable definitions along to
+ sub-make:
+
+ run_make prefix=/opt install # GOOD
+
+* Use '$sleep' when you have to make sure that some file is newer
than another.
- Use cat or grep or similar commands to display (part of) files that
+* Use cat or grep or similar commands to display (part of) files that
may be interesting for debugging, so that when a user send a verbose
output we don't have to ask him for more details. Display stderr
output on the stderr file descriptor. If some redirected command is
likely to fail, display its output even in the failure case, before
exiting.
- Use 'Exit' rather than 'exit' to abort for leave early from a test
- case.
-
- Use '$PATH_SEPARATOR', not hard-coded ':', as the separator of
+* Use '$PATH_SEPARATOR', not hard-coded ':', as the separator of
PATH's entries.
- It's more important to make sure that a feature works, than make
+* It's more important to make sure that a feature works, than make
sure that Automake's output looks correct. It might look correct
and still fail to work. In other words, prefer running 'make' over
grepping Makefile.in (or do both).
- If you run $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE or $AUTOCONF several times in the
+* If you run $ACLOCAL, $AUTOMAKE or $AUTOCONF several times in the
same test and change configure.ac by the meantime, do
+
rm -rf autom4te*.cache
+
before the following runs. On fast machines the new configure.ac
could otherwise have the same timestamp as the old autom4te.cache.
- Use filenames with two consecutive spaces when testing that some
+* Use filenames with two consecutive spaces when testing that some
code preserves filenames with spaces. This will catch errors like
`echo $filename | ...`.
- Make sure your test script can be used to faithfully check an
+* Make sure your test script can be used to faithfully check an
installed version of automake (as with "make installcheck"). For
example, if you need to copy or grep an automake-provided script,
do not assume that they can be found in the '$top_srcdir/lib'
directory, but use '$am_scriptdir' instead. The complete list of
- such "$am_...dir" variables can be found in the 'defs-static.in'
+ such "$am_...dir" variables can be found in the 't/ax/test-defs.in'
file.
- When writing input for lex, include the following in the definitions
+* When writing input for lex, include the following in the definitions
section:
+
%{
#define YY_NO_UNISTD_H 1
%}
+
to accommodate non-ANSI systems, since GNU flex generates code that
includes unistd.h otherwise. Also add:
+
int isatty (int fd) { return 0; }
+
to the definitions section if the generated code is to be compiled
by a C++ compiler, for similar reasons (i.e., the isatty(3) function
from that same unistd.h header would be required otherwise).
- Before commit: make sure the test is executable, add the tests to
- TESTS in Makefile.am, add it to XFAIL_TESTS in addition if needed,
- write a ChangeLog entry, send the diff to <automake-patches@gnu.org>.
+* Add any new test to handwritten_TESTS in 't/list-of-tests.mk', and
+ to XFAIL_TESTS in addition if needed (that is, if the test is expected
+ to fail).
+* In test scripts, prefer using POSIX constructs over their old
+ Bourne-only equivalents:
-Do not
-------
+ - use $(...), not `...`, for command substitution;
+ - use $((...)), not `expr ...`, for arithmetic processing;
+ - liberally use '!' to invert the exit status of a command, e.g.,
+ in idioms like "if ! CMD; then ...", instead of relying on clumsy
+ paraphrases like "if CMD; then :; else ...".
+ - prefer use of ${param%pattern} and ${param#pattern} parameter
+ expansions over processing by 'sed' or 'expr'.
- Do not test an Automake error with "$AUTOMAKE && Exit 1", or in three
+* Note however that, when writing Makefile recipes or shell code in a
+ configure.ac, you should still use `...` instead, because the Autoconf
+ generated configure scripts do not ensure they will find a truly POSIX
+ shell (even though they will prefer and use it *if* it's found).
+
+* Do not test an Automake error with "$AUTOMAKE && exit 1", or in three
years we'll discover that this test failed for some other bogus reason.
This happened many times. Better use something like
+
AUTOMAKE_fails
grep 'expected diagnostic' stderr
- (Note this doesn't prevent the test from failing for another reason,
- but at least it makes sure the original error is still here).
-
- Do not override Makefile variables using make arguments, as in e.g.:
- $MAKE prefix=/opt install
- This is not portable for recursive targets (targets that call a
- sub-make may not pass "prefix=/opt" along). Use the following
- instead:
- prefix=/opt $MAKE -e install
+
+ Note this doesn't prevent the test from failing for another reason,
+ but at least it makes sure the original error is still here.
projects / platform / upstream / automake.git / blobdiff