Test::Builder::TePerl(Programmers RefereTest::Builder::Tester(3p)
Test::Builder::Tester - test testsuites that have been built
with Test::Builder
use Test::Builder::Tester tests => 1;
use Test::More;
test_out("not ok 1 - foo");
test_fail(+1);
fail("foo");
test_test("fail works");
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 com-
pare 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.
Methods
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
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test_out("ok 1");
test_out("ok 2");
Once "test_out" or "test_err" (or "test_fail" or
"test_diag") have been called once all further output
from Test::Builder will be captured by
Test::Builder::Tester. This means that your 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 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 method 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" func-
tion, Test::Builder::Tester provides a convience func-
tion "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");
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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 convience, 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 methods that
contain line numbers.
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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 there exists
one function that can only be accessed with a fully quali-
fied 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, if you have the Term::ANSIColor module
installed (which you should do by default from perl
5.005 onwards), "test_test" can colour the background of
the debug information to disambiguate the different
types of output. The debug output will have it's back-
ground coloured green and red. The green part
represents the text which is the same between the exe-
cuted 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 func-
tion 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.
Calls Test::Builder's "no_ending" method 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
installed and is compatible with your terminal.
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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>
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 distri-
buted with permission.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
This code has been tested explicitly on the following ver-
sions of perl: 5.7.3, 5.6.1, 5.6.0, 5.005_03, 5.004_05 and
5.004.
Thanks to Richard Clamp <richardc@unixbeard.net> for letting
me use his testing system to try this module out on.
Test::Builder, Test::Builder::Tester::Color, Test::More.
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