1tcltest(n) Tcl Bundled Packages tcltest(n)
2______________________________________________________________________________
6
8 tcltest - Test harness support code and utilities
9
11 package require tcltest ?2.3?
12 tcltest::test name description ?-option value ...?
14 tcltest::test name description ?constraints? body result
15 tcltest::loadTestedCommands
17 tcltest::makeDirectory name ?directory?
18 tcltest::removeDirectory name ?directory?
19 tcltest::makeFile contents name ?directory?
20 tcltest::removeFile name ?directory?
21 tcltest::viewFile name ?directory?
22 tcltest::cleanupTests ?runningMultipleTests?
23 tcltest::runAllTests
24 tcltest::configure
26 tcltest::configure -option
27 tcltest::configure -option value ?-option value ...?
28 tcltest::customMatch mode command
29 tcltest::testConstraint constraint ?value?
30 tcltest::outputChannel ?channelID?
31 tcltest::errorChannel ?channelID?
32 tcltest::interpreter ?interp?
33 tcltest::debug ?level?
35 tcltest::errorFile ?filename?
36 tcltest::limitConstraints ?boolean?
37 tcltest::loadFile ?filename?
38 tcltest::loadScript ?script?
39 tcltest::match ?patternList?
40 tcltest::matchDirectories ?patternList?
41 tcltest::matchFiles ?patternList?
42 tcltest::outputFile ?filename?
43 tcltest::preserveCore ?level?
44 tcltest::singleProcess ?boolean?
45 tcltest::skip ?patternList?
46 tcltest::skipDirectories ?patternList?
47 tcltest::skipFiles ?patternList?
48 tcltest::temporaryDirectory ?directory?
49 tcltest::testsDirectory ?directory?
50 tcltest::verbose ?level?
51 tcltest::test name description optionList
53 tcltest::bytestring string
54 tcltest::normalizeMsg msg
55 tcltest::normalizePath pathVar
56 tcltest::workingDirectory ?dir?
57______________________________________________________________________________
58
60 The tcltest package provides several utility commands useful in the
61 construction of test suites for code instrumented to be run by evalua‐
62 tion of Tcl commands. Notably the built-in commands of the Tcl library
63 itself are tested by a test suite using the tcltest package.
64 All the commands provided by the tcltest package are defined in and
66 exported from the ::tcltest namespace, as indicated in the SYNOPSIS
67 above. In the following sections, all commands will be described by
68 their simple names, in the interest of brevity.
69 The central command of tcltest is test that defines and runs a test.
71 Testing with test involves evaluation of a Tcl script and comparing the
72 result to an expected result, as configured and controlled by a number
73 of options. Several other commands provided by tcltest govern the con‐
74 figuration of test and the collection of many test commands into test
75 suites.
76 See CREATING TEST SUITES WITH TCLTEST below for an extended example of
78 how to use the commands of tcltest to produce test suites for your Tcl-
79 enabled code.
80
82 test name description ?-option value ...?
83 Defines and possibly runs a test with the name name and descrip‐
84 tion description. The name and description of a test are used
85 in messages reported by test during the test, as configured by
86 the options of tcltest. The remaining option value arguments to
87 test define the test, including the scripts to run, the condi‐
88 tions under which to run them, the expected result, and the
89 means by which the expected and actual results should be com‐
90 pared. See TESTS below for a complete description of the valid
91 options and how they define a test. The test command returns an
92 empty string.
93 test name description ?constraints? body result
95 This form of test is provided to support test suites written for
96 version 1 of the tcltest package, and also a simpler interface
97 for a common usage. It is the same as “test name description
98 -constraints constraints -body body -result result”. All other
99 options to test take their default values. When constraints is
100 omitted, this form of test can be distinguished from the first
101 because all options begin with “-”.
102 loadTestedCommands
104 Evaluates in the caller's context the script specified by con‐
105 figure -load or configure -loadfile. Returns the result of that
106 script evaluation, including any error raised by the script.
107 Use this command and the related configuration options to pro‐
108 vide the commands to be tested to the interpreter running the
109 test suite.
110 makeFile contents name ?directory?
112 Creates a file named name relative to directory directory and
113 write contents to that file using the encoding encoding system.
114 If contents does not end with a newline, a newline will be
115 appended so that the file named name does end with a newline.
116 Because the system encoding is used, this command is only suit‐
117 able for making text files. The file will be removed by the
118 next evaluation of cleanupTests, unless it is removed by remove‐
119 File first. The default value of directory is the directory
120 configure -tmpdir. Returns the full path of the file created.
121 Use this command to create any text file required by a test with
122 contents as needed.
123 removeFile name ?directory?
125 Forces the file referenced by name to be removed. This file
126 name should be relative to directory. The default value of
127 directory is the directory configure -tmpdir. Returns an empty
128 string. Use this command to delete files created by makeFile.
129 makeDirectory name ?directory?
131 Creates a directory named name relative to directory directory.
132 The directory will be removed by the next evaluation of
133 cleanupTests, unless it is removed by removeDirectory first.
134 The default value of directory is the directory configure
135 -tmpdir. Returns the full path of the directory created. Use
136 this command to create any directories that are required to
137 exist by a test.
138 removeDirectory name ?directory?
140 Forces the directory referenced by name to be removed. This
141 directory should be relative to directory. The default value of
142 directory is the directory configure -tmpdir. Returns an empty
143 string. Use this command to delete any directories created by
144 makeDirectory.
145 viewFile file ?directory?
147 Returns the contents of file, except for any final newline, just
148 as read -nonewline would return. This file name should be rela‐
149 tive to directory. The default value of directory is the direc‐
150 tory configure -tmpdir. Use this command as a convenient way to
151 turn the contents of a file generated by a test into the result
152 of that test for matching against an expected result. The con‐
153 tents of the file are read using the system encoding, so its
154 usefulness is limited to text files.
155 cleanupTests
157 Intended to clean up and summarize after several tests have been
158 run. Typically called once per test file, at the end of the
159 file after all tests have been completed. For best effective‐
160 ness, be sure that the cleanupTests is evaluated even if an
161 error occurs earlier in the test file evaluation.
162 Prints statistics about the tests run and removes files that
164 were created by makeDirectory and makeFile since the last
165 cleanupTests. Names of files and directories in the directory
166 configure -tmpdir created since the last cleanupTests, but not
167 created by makeFile or makeDirectory are printed to outputChan‐
168 nel. This command also restores the original shell environment,
169 as described by the global env array. Returns an empty string.
170 runAllTests
172 This is a master command meant to run an entire suite of tests,
173 spanning multiple files and/or directories, as governed by the
174 configurable options of tcltest. See RUNNING ALL TESTS below
175 for a complete description of the many variations possible with
176 runAllTests.
177 CONFIGURATION COMMANDS
179 configure
180 Returns the list of configurable options supported by tcltest.
181 See CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS below for the full list of options,
182 their valid values, and their effect on tcltest operations.
183 configure option
185 Returns the current value of the supported configurable option
186 option. Raises an error if option is not a supported config‐
187 urable option.
188 configure option value ?-option value ...?
190 Sets the value of each configurable option option to the corre‐
191 sponding value value, in order. Raises an error if an option is
192 not a supported configurable option, or if value is not a valid
193 value for the corresponding option, or if a value is not pro‐
194 vided. When an error is raised, the operation of configure is
195 halted, and subsequent option value arguments are not processed.
196 If the environment variable ::env(TCLTEST_OPTIONS) exists when
198 the tcltest package is loaded (by package require tcltest) then
199 its value is taken as a list of arguments to pass to configure.
200 This allows the default values of the configuration options to
201 be set by the environment.
202 customMatch mode script
204 Registers mode as a new legal value of the -match option to
205 test. When the -match mode option is passed to test, the script
206 script will be evaluated to compare the actual result of evalu‐
207 ating the body of the test to the expected result. To perform
208 the match, the script is completed with two additional words,
209 the expected result, and the actual result, and the completed
210 script is evaluated in the global namespace. The completed
211 script is expected to return a boolean value indicating whether
212 or not the results match. The built-in matching modes of test
213 are exact, glob, and regexp.
214 testConstraint constraint ?boolean?
216 Sets or returns the boolean value associated with the named con‐
217 straint. See TEST CONSTRAINTS below for more information.
218 interpreter ?executableName?
220 Sets or returns the name of the executable to be execed by
221 runAllTests to run each test file when configure -singleproc is
222 false. The default value for interpreter is the name of the
223 currently running program as returned by info nameofexecutable.
224 outputChannel ?channelID?
226 Sets or returns the output channel ID. This defaults to stdout.
227 Any test that prints test related output should send that output
228 to outputChannel rather than letting that output default to std‐
229 out.
230 errorChannel ?channelID?
232 Sets or returns the error channel ID. This defaults to stderr.
233 Any test that prints error messages should send that output to
234 errorChannel rather than printing directly to stderr.
235 SHORTCUT CONFIGURATION COMMANDS
237 debug ?level?
238 Same as “configure -debug ?level?”.
239 errorFile ?filename?
241 Same as “configure -errfile ?filename?”.
242 limitConstraints ?boolean?
244 Same as “configure -limitconstraints ?boolean?”.
245 loadFile ?filename?
247 Same as “configure -loadfile ?filename?”.
248 loadScript ?script?
250 Same as “configure -load ?script?”.
251 match ?patternList?
253 Same as “configure -match ?patternList?”.
254 matchDirectories ?patternList?
256 Same as “configure -relateddir ?patternList?”.
257 matchFiles ?patternList?
259 Same as “configure -file ?patternList?”.
260 outputFile ?filename?
262 Same as “configure -outfile ?filename?”.
263 preserveCore ?level?
265 Same as “configure -preservecore ?level?”.
266 singleProcess ?boolean?
268 Same as “configure -singleproc ?boolean?”.
269 skip ?patternList?
271 Same as “configure -skip ?patternList?”.
272 skipDirectories ?patternList?
274 Same as “configure -asidefromdir ?patternList?”.
275 skipFiles ?patternList?
277 Same as “configure -notfile ?patternList?”.
278 temporaryDirectory ?directory?
280 Same as “configure -tmpdir ?directory?”.
281 testsDirectory ?directory?
283 Same as “configure -testdir ?directory?”.
284 verbose ?level?
286 Same as “configure -verbose ?level?”.
287 OTHER COMMANDS
289 The remaining commands provided by tcltest have better alternatives
290 provided by tcltest or Tcl itself. They are retained to support exist‐
291 ing test suites, but should be avoided in new code.
292 test name description optionList
294 This form of test was provided to enable passing many options
295 spanning several lines to test as a single argument quoted by
296 braces, rather than needing to backslash quote the newlines
297 between arguments to test. The optionList argument is expected
298 to be a list with an even number of elements representing option
299 and value arguments to pass to test. However, these values are
300 not passed directly, as in the alternate forms of switch.
301 Instead, this form makes an unfortunate attempt to overthrow
302 Tcl's substitution rules by performing substitutions on some of
303 the list elements as an attempt to implement a “do what I mean”
304 interpretation of a brace-enclosed “block”. The result is
305 nearly impossible to document clearly, and for that reason this
306 form is not recommended. See the examples in CREATING TEST
307 SUITES WITH TCLTEST below to see that this form is really not
308 necessary to avoid backslash-quoted newlines. If you insist on
309 using this form, examine the source code of tcltest if you want
310 to know the substitution details, or just enclose the third
311 through last argument to test in braces and hope for the best.
312 workingDirectory ?directoryName?
314 Sets or returns the current working directory when the test
315 suite is running. The default value for workingDirectory is the
316 directory in which the test suite was launched. The Tcl com‐
317 mands cd and pwd are sufficient replacements.
318 normalizeMsg msg
320 Returns the result of removing the “extra” newlines from msg,
321 where “extra” is rather imprecise. Tcl offers plenty of string
322 processing commands to modify strings as you wish, and custom‐
323 Match allows flexible matching of actual and expected results.
324 normalizePath pathVar
326 Resolves symlinks in a path, thus creating a path without inter‐
327 nal redirection. It is assumed that pathVar is absolute. path‐
328 Var is modified in place. The Tcl command file normalize is a
329 sufficient replacement.
330 bytestring string
332 Construct a string that consists of the requested sequence of
333 bytes, as opposed to a string of properly formed UTF-8 charac‐
334 ters using the value supplied in string. This allows the tester
335 to create denormalized or improperly formed strings to pass to C
336 procedures that are supposed to accept strings with embedded
337 NULL types and confirm that a string result has a certain pat‐
338 tern of bytes. This is exactly equivalent to the Tcl command
339 encoding convertfrom identity.
340
342 The test command is the heart of the tcltest package. Its essential
343 function is to evaluate a Tcl script and compare the result with an
344 expected result. The options of test define the test script, the envi‐
345 ronment in which to evaluate it, the expected result, and how the com‐
346 pare the actual result to the expected result. Some configuration
347 options of tcltest also influence how test operates.
348 The valid options for test are summarized:
350 test name description
352 ?-constraints keywordList|expression?
353 ?-setup setupScript?
354 ?-body testScript?
355 ?-cleanup cleanupScript?
356 ?-result expectedAnswer?
357 ?-output expectedOutput?
358 ?-errorOutput expectedError?
359 ?-returnCodes codeList?
360 ?-match mode?
361 The name may be any string. It is conventional to choose a name
363 according to the pattern:
364 target-majorNum.minorNum
366 For white-box (regression) tests, the target should be the name of the
368 C function or Tcl procedure being tested. For black-box tests, the
369 target should be the name of the feature being tested. Some conven‐
370 tions call for the names of black-box tests to have the suffix _bb.
371 Related tests should share a major number. As a test suite evolves, it
372 is best to have the same test name continue to correspond to the same
373 test, so that it remains meaningful to say things like “Test foo-1.3
374 passed in all releases up to 3.4, but began failing in release 3.5.”
375 During evaluation of test, the name will be compared to the lists of
377 string matching patterns returned by configure -match, and configure
378 -skip. The test will be run only if name matches any of the patterns
379 from configure -match and matches none of the patterns from configure
380 -skip.
381 The description should be a short textual description of the test. The
383 description is included in output produced by the test, typically test
384 failure messages. Good description values should briefly explain the
385 purpose of the test to users of a test suite. The name of a Tcl or C
386 function being tested should be included in the description for regres‐
387 sion tests. If the test case exists to reproduce a bug, include the
388 bug ID in the description.
389 Valid attributes and associated values are:
391 -constraints keywordList|expression
393 The optional -constraints attribute can be list of one or more
394 keywords or an expression. If the -constraints value is a list
395 of keywords, each of these keywords should be the name of a con‐
396 straint defined by a call to testConstraint. If any of the
397 listed constraints is false or does not exist, the test is
398 skipped. If the -constraints value is an expression, that
399 expression is evaluated. If the expression evaluates to true,
400 then the test is run. Note that the expression form of -con‐
401 straints may interfere with the operation of configure -con‐
402 straints and configure -limitconstraints, and is not recom‐
403 mended. Appropriate constraints should be added to any tests
404 that should not always be run. That is, conditional evaluation
405 of a test should be accomplished by the -constraints option, not
406 by conditional evaluation of test. In that way, the same number
407 of tests are always reported by the test suite, though the num‐
408 ber skipped may change based on the testing environment. The
409 default value is an empty list. See TEST CONSTRAINTS below for
410 a list of built-in constraints and information on how to add
411 your own constraints.
412 -setup script
414 The optional -setup attribute indicates a script that will be
415 run before the script indicated by the -body attribute. If
416 evaluation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
417 default value is an empty script.
418 -body script
420 The -body attribute indicates the script to run to carry out the
421 test, which must return a result that can be checked for cor‐
422 rectness. If evaluation of script raises an error, the test
423 will fail (unless the -returnCodes option is used to state that
424 an error is expected). The default value is an empty script.
425 -cleanup script
427 The optional -cleanup attribute indicates a script that will be
428 run after the script indicated by the -body attribute. If eval‐
429 uation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
430 default value is an empty script.
431 -match mode
433 The -match attribute determines how expected answers supplied by
434 -result, -output, and -errorOutput are compared. Valid values
435 for mode are regexp, glob, exact, and any value registered by a
436 prior call to customMatch. The default value is exact.
437 -result expectedValue
439 The -result attribute supplies the expectedValue against which
440 the return value from script will be compared. The default value
441 is an empty string.
442 -output expectedValue
444 The -output attribute supplies the expectedValue against which
445 any output sent to stdout or outputChannel during evaluation of
446 the script(s) will be compared. Note that only output printed
447 using the global puts command is used for comparison. If -out‐
448 put is not specified, output sent to stdout and outputChannel is
449 not processed for comparison.
450 -errorOutput expectedValue
452 The -errorOutput attribute supplies the expectedValue against
453 which any output sent to stderr or errorChannel during evalua‐
454 tion of the script(s) will be compared. Note that only output
455 printed using the global puts command is used for comparison.
456 If -errorOutput is not specified, output sent to stderr and
457 errorChannel is not processed for comparison.
458 -returnCodes expectedCodeList
460 The optional -returnCodes attribute supplies expectedCodeList, a
461 list of return codes that may be accepted from evaluation of the
462 -body script. If evaluation of the -body script returns a code
463 not in the expectedCodeList, the test fails. All return codes
464 known to return, in both numeric and symbolic form, including
465 extended return codes, are acceptable elements in the expected‐
466 CodeList. Default value is “ok return”.
467 To pass, a test must successfully evaluate its -setup, -body, and
469 -cleanup scripts. The return code of the -body script and its result
470 must match expected values, and if specified, output and error data
471 from the test must match expected -output and -errorOutput values. If
472 any of these conditions are not met, then the test fails. Note that
473 all scripts are evaluated in the context of the caller of test.
474 As long as test is called with valid syntax and legal values for all
476 attributes, it will not raise an error. Test failures are instead
477 reported as output written to outputChannel. In default operation, a
478 successful test produces no output. The output messages produced by
479 test are controlled by the configure -verbose option as described in
480 CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS below. Any output produced by the test scripts
481 themselves should be produced using puts to outputChannel or errorChan‐
482 nel, so that users of the test suite may easily capture output with the
483 configure -outfile and configure -errfile options, and so that the
484 -output and -errorOutput attributes work properly.
485 TEST CONSTRAINTS
487 Constraints are used to determine whether or not a test should be
488 skipped. Each constraint has a name, which may be any string, and a
489 boolean value. Each test has a -constraints value which is a list of
490 constraint names. There are two modes of constraint control. Most
491 frequently, the default mode is used, indicated by a setting of config‐
492 ure -limitconstraints to false. The test will run only if all con‐
493 straints in the list are true-valued. Thus, the -constraints option of
494 test is a convenient, symbolic way to define any conditions required
495 for the test to be possible or meaningful. For example, a test with
496 -constraints unix will only be run if the constraint unix is true,
497 which indicates the test suite is being run on a Unix platform.
498 Each test should include whatever -constraints are required to con‐
500 strain it to run only where appropriate. Several constraints are pre-
501 defined in the tcltest package, listed below. The registration of
502 user-defined constraints is performed by the testConstraint command.
503 User-defined constraints may appear within a test file, or within the
504 script specified by the configure -load or configure -loadfile options.
505 The following is a list of constraints pre-defined by the tcltest pack‐
507 age itself:
508 singleTestInterp
510 This test can only be run if all test files are sourced into a
511 single interpreter.
512 unix This test can only be run on any Unix platform.
514 win This test can only be run on any Windows platform.
516 nt This test can only be run on any Windows NT platform.
518 mac This test can only be run on any Mac platform.
520 unixOrWin
522 This test can only be run on a Unix or Windows platform.
523 macOrWin
525 This test can only be run on a Mac or Windows platform.
526 macOrUnix
528 This test can only be run on a Mac or Unix platform.
529 tempNotWin
531 This test can not be run on Windows. This flag is used to tem‐
532 porarily disable a test.
533 tempNotMac
535 This test can not be run on a Mac. This flag is used to tempo‐
536 rarily disable a test.
537 unixCrash
539 This test crashes if it is run on Unix. This flag is used to
540 temporarily disable a test.
541 winCrash
543 This test crashes if it is run on Windows. This flag is used to
544 temporarily disable a test.
545 macCrash
547 This test crashes if it is run on a Mac. This flag is used to
548 temporarily disable a test.
549 emptyTest
551 This test is empty, and so not worth running, but it remains as
552 a place-holder for a test to be written in the future. This
553 constraint has value false to cause tests to be skipped unless
554 the user specifies otherwise.
555 knownBug
557 This test is known to fail and the bug is not yet fixed. This
558 constraint has value false to cause tests to be skipped unless
559 the user specifies otherwise.
560 nonPortable
562 This test can only be run in some known development environment.
563 Some tests are inherently non-portable because they depend on
564 things like word length, file system configuration, window man‐
565 ager, etc. This constraint has value false to cause tests to be
566 skipped unless the user specifies otherwise.
567 userInteraction
569 This test requires interaction from the user. This constraint
570 has value false to causes tests to be skipped unless the user
571 specifies otherwise.
572 interactive
574 This test can only be run in if the interpreter is in interac‐
575 tive mode (when the global tcl_interactive variable is set to
576 1).
577 nonBlockFiles
579 This test can only be run if platform supports setting files
580 into nonblocking mode.
581 asyncPipeClose
583 This test can only be run if platform supports async flush and
584 async close on a pipe.
585 unixExecs
587 This test can only be run if this machine has Unix-style com‐
588 mands cat, echo, sh, wc, rm, sleep, fgrep, ps, chmod, and mkdir
589 available.
590 hasIsoLocale
592 This test can only be run if can switch to an ISO locale.
593 root This test can only run if Unix user is root.
595 notRoot
597 This test can only run if Unix user is not root.
598 eformat
600 This test can only run if app has a working version of sprintf
601 with respect to the “e” format of floating-point numbers.
602 stdio This test can only be run if interpreter can be opened as a
604 pipe.
605 The alternative mode of constraint control is enabled by setting con‐
607 figure -limitconstraints to true. With that configuration setting, all
608 existing constraints other than those in the constraint list returned
609 by configure -constraints are set to false. When the value of config‐
610 ure -constraints is set, all those constraints are set to true. The
611 effect is that when both options configure -constraints and configure
612 -limitconstraints are in use, only those tests including only con‐
613 straints from the configure -constraints list are run; all others are
614 skipped. For example, one might set up a configuration with
615 configure -constraints knownBug \
617 -limitconstraints true \
618 -verbose pass
619 to run exactly those tests that exercise known bugs, and discover
621 whether any of them pass, indicating the bug had been fixed.
622 RUNNING ALL TESTS
624 The single command runAllTests is evaluated to run an entire test
625 suite, spanning many files and directories. The configuration options
626 of tcltest control the precise operations. The runAllTests command
627 begins by printing a summary of its configuration to outputChannel.
628 Test files to be evaluated are sought in the directory configure -test‐
630 dir. The list of files in that directory that match any of the pat‐
631 terns in configure -file and match none of the patterns in configure
632 -notfile is generated and sorted. Then each file will be evaluated in
633 turn. If configure -singleproc is true, then each file will be sourced
634 in the caller's context. If it is false, then a copy of interpreter
635 will be exec'd to evaluate each file. The multi-process operation is
636 useful when testing can cause errors so severe that a process termi‐
637 nates. Although such an error may terminate a child process evaluating
638 one file, the master process can continue with the rest of the test
639 suite. In multi-process operation, the configuration of tcltest in the
640 master process is passed to the child processes as command line argu‐
641 ments, with the exception of configure -outfile. The runAllTests com‐
642 mand in the master process collects all output from the child processes
643 and collates their results into one master report. Any reports of
644 individual test failures, or messages requested by a configure -verbose
645 setting are passed directly on to outputChannel by the master process.
646 After evaluating all selected test files, a summary of the results is
648 printed to outputChannel. The summary includes the total number of
649 tests evaluated, broken down into those skipped, those passed, and
650 those failed. The summary also notes the number of files evaluated,
651 and the names of any files with failing tests or errors. A list of the
652 constraints that caused tests to be skipped, and the number of tests
653 skipped for each is also printed. Also, messages are printed if it
654 appears that evaluation of a test file has caused any temporary files
655 to be left behind in configure -tmpdir.
656 Having completed and summarized all selected test files, runAllTests
658 then recursively acts on subdirectories of configure -testdir. All
659 subdirectories that match any of the patterns in configure -relateddir
660 and do not match any of the patterns in configure -asidefromdir are
661 examined. If a file named all.tcl is found in such a directory, it
662 will be sourced in the caller's context. Whether or not an examined
663 directory contains an all.tcl file, its subdirectories are also scanned
664 against the configure -relateddir and configure -asidefromdir patterns.
665 In this way, many directories in a directory tree can have all their
666 test files evaluated by a single runAllTests command.
667
669 The configure command is used to set and query the configurable options
670 of tcltest. The valid options are:
671 -singleproc boolean
673 Controls whether or not runAllTests spawns a child process for
674 each test file. No spawning when boolean is true. Default
675 value is false.
676 -debug level
678 Sets the debug level to level, an integer value indicating how
679 much debugging information should be printed to stdout. Note
680 that debug messages always go to stdout, independent of the
681 value of configure -outfile. Default value is 0. Levels are
682 defined as:
683 0 Do not display any debug information.
685 1 Display information regarding whether a test is skipped
687 because it does not match any of the tests that were speci‐
688 fied using by configure -match (userSpecifiedNonMatch) or
689 matches any of the tests specified by configure -skip (user‐
690 SpecifiedSkip). Also print warnings about possible lack of
691 cleanup or balance in test files. Also print warnings about
692 any re-use of test names.
693 2 Display the flag array parsed by the command line processor,
695 the contents of the global env array, and all user-defined
696 variables that exist in the current namespace as they are
697 used.
698 3 Display information regarding what individual procs in the
700 test harness are doing.
701 -verbose level
703 Sets the type of output verbosity desired to level, a list of
704 zero or more of the elements body, pass, skip, start, error,
705 line, msec and usec. Default value is “body error”. Levels are
706 defined as:
707 body (b)
709 Display the body of failed tests
710 pass (p)
712 Print output when a test passes
713 skip (s)
715 Print output when a test is skipped
716 start (t)
718 Print output whenever a test starts
719 error (e)
721 Print errorInfo and errorCode, if they exist, when a test
722 return code does not match its expected return code
723 line (l)
725 Print source file line information of failed tests
726 msec (m)
728 Print each test's execution time in milliseconds
729 usec (u)
731 Print each test's execution time in microseconds
732 Note that the msec and usec verbosity levels are provided as
734 indicative measures only. They do not tackle the problem of
735 repeatibility which should be considered in performance tests or
736 benchmarks. To use these verbosity levels to thoroughly track
737 performance degradations, consider wrapping your test bodies
738 with time commands.
739 The single letter abbreviations noted above are also recognized
741 so that “configure -verbose pt” is the same as “configure -ver‐
742 bose {pass start}”.
743 -preservecore level
745 Sets the core preservation level to level. This level deter‐
746 mines how stringent checks for core files are. Default value is
747 0. Levels are defined as:
748 0 No checking — do not check for core files at the end of
750 each test command, but do check for them in runAllTests
751 after all test files have been evaluated.
752 1 Also check for core files at the end of each test com‐
754 mand.
755 2 Check for core files at all times described above, and
757 save a copy of each core file produced in configure
758 -tmpdir.
759 -limitconstraints boolean
761 Sets the mode by which test honors constraints as described in
762 TESTS above. Default value is false.
763 -constraints list
765 Sets all the constraints in list to true. Also used in combina‐
766 tion with configure -limitconstraints true to control an alter‐
767 native constraint mode as described in TESTS above. Default
768 value is an empty list.
769 -tmpdir directory
771 Sets the temporary directory to be used by makeFile, makeDirec‐
772 tory, viewFile, removeFile, and removeDirectory as the default
773 directory where temporary files and directories created by test
774 files should be created. Default value is workingDirectory.
775 -testdir directory
777 Sets the directory searched by runAllTests for test files and
778 subdirectories. Default value is workingDirectory.
779 -file patternList
781 Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
782 test files to evaluate. Default value is “*.test”.
783 -notfile patternList
785 Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
786 test files to skip. Default value is “l.*.test”, so that any
787 SCCS lock files are skipped.
788 -relateddir patternList
790 Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
791 subdirectories to search for an all.tcl file. Default value is
792 “*”.
793 -asidefromdir patternList
795 Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
796 subdirectories to skip when searching for an all.tcl file.
797 Default value is an empty list.
798 -match patternList
800 Set the list of patterns used by test to determine whether a
801 test should be run. Default value is “*”.
802 -skip patternList
804 Set the list of patterns used by test to determine whether a
805 test should be skipped. Default value is an empty list.
806 -load script
808 Sets a script to be evaluated by loadTestedCommands. Default
809 value is an empty script.
810 -loadfile filename
812 Sets the filename from which to read a script to be evaluated by
813 loadTestedCommands. This is an alternative to -load. They can‐
814 not be used together.
815 -outfile filename
817 Sets the file to which all output produced by tcltest should be
818 written. A file named filename will be opened for writing, and
819 the resulting channel will be set as the value of outputChannel.
820 -errfile filename
822 Sets the file to which all error output produced by tcltest
823 should be written. A file named filename will be opened for
824 writing, and the resulting channel will be set as the value of
825 errorChannel.
826
828 The fundamental element of a test suite is the individual test command.
829 We begin with several examples.
830 [1] Test of a script that returns normally.
832 test example-1.0 {normal return} {
834 format %s value
835 } value
836 [2] Test of a script that requires context setup and cleanup. Note
838 the bracing and indenting style that avoids any need for line
839 continuation.
840 test example-1.1 {test file existence} -setup {
842 set file [makeFile {} test]
843 } -body {
844 file exists $file
845 } -cleanup {
846 removeFile test
847 } -result 1
848 [3] Test of a script that raises an error.
850 test example-1.2 {error return} -body {
852 error message
853 } -returnCodes error -result message
854 [4] Test with a constraint.
856 test example-1.3 {user owns created files} -constraints {
858 unix
859 } -setup {
860 set file [makeFile {} test]
861 } -body {
862 file attributes $file -owner
863 } -cleanup {
864 removeFile test
865 } -result $::tcl_platform(user)
866 At the next higher layer of organization, several test commands are
868 gathered together into a single test file. Test files should have
869 names with the “.test” extension, because that is the default pattern
870 used by runAllTests to find test files. It is a good rule of thumb to
871 have one test file for each source code file of your project. It is
872 good practice to edit the test file and the source code file together,
873 keeping tests synchronized with code changes.
874 Most of the code in the test file should be the test commands. Use
876 constraints to skip tests, rather than conditional evaluation of test.
877 [5] Recommended system for writing conditional tests, using con‐
879 straints to guard:
880 testConstraint X [expr $myRequirement]
882 test goodConditionalTest {} X {
883 # body
884 } result
885 [6] Discouraged system for writing conditional tests, using if to
887 guard:
888 if $myRequirement {
890 test badConditionalTest {} {
891 #body
892 } result
893 }
894 Use the -setup and -cleanup options to establish and release all con‐
896 text requirements of the test body. Do not make tests depend on prior
897 tests in the file. Those prior tests might be skipped. If several
898 consecutive tests require the same context, the appropriate setup and
899 cleanup scripts may be stored in variable for passing to each tests
900 -setup and -cleanup options. This is a better solution than performing
901 setup outside of test commands, because the setup will only be done if
902 necessary, and any errors during setup will be reported, and not cause
903 the test file to abort.
904 A test file should be able to be combined with other test files and not
906 interfere with them, even when configure -singleproc 1 causes all files
907 to be evaluated in a common interpreter. A simple way to achieve this
908 is to have your tests define all their commands and variables in a
909 namespace that is deleted when the test file evaluation is complete. A
910 good namespace to use is a child namespace test of the namespace of the
911 module you are testing.
912 A test file should also be able to be evaluated directly as a script,
914 not depending on being called by a master runAllTests. This means that
915 each test file should process command line arguments to give the tester
916 all the configuration control that tcltest provides.
917 After all tests in a test file, the command cleanupTests should be
919 called.
920 [7] Here is a sketch of a sample test file illustrating those
922 points:
923 package require tcltest 2.2
925 eval ::tcltest::configure $argv
926 package require example
927 namespace eval ::example::test {
928 namespace import ::tcltest::*
929 testConstraint X [expr {...}]
930 variable SETUP {#common setup code}
931 variable CLEANUP {#common cleanup code}
932 test example-1 {} -setup $SETUP -body {
933 # First test
934 } -cleanup $CLEANUP -result {...}
935 test example-2 {} -constraints X -setup $SETUP -body {
936 # Second test; constrained
937 } -cleanup $CLEANUP -result {...}
938 test example-3 {} {
939 # Third test; no context required
940 } {...}
941 cleanupTests
942 }
943 namespace delete ::example::test
944 The next level of organization is a full test suite, made up of several
946 test files. One script is used to control the entire suite. The basic
947 function of this script is to call runAllTests after doing any neces‐
948 sary setup. This script is usually named all.tcl because that is the
949 default name used by runAllTests when combining multiple test suites
950 into one testing run.
951 [8] Here is a sketch of a sample test suite master script:
953 package require Tcl 8.4
955 package require tcltest 2.2
956 package require example
957 ::tcltest::configure -testdir \
958 [file dirname [file normalize [info script]]]
959 eval ::tcltest::configure $argv
960 ::tcltest::runAllTests
961
963 A number of commands and variables in the ::tcltest namespace provided
964 by earlier releases of tcltest have not been documented here. They are
965 no longer part of the supported public interface of tcltest and should
966 not be used in new test suites. However, to continue to support exist‐
967 ing test suites written to the older interface specifications, many of
968 those deprecated commands and variables still work as before. For
969 example, in many circumstances, configure will be automatically called
970 shortly after package require tcltest 2.1 succeeds with arguments from
971 the variable ::argv. This is to support test suites that depend on the
972 old behavior that tcltest was automatically configured from command
973 line arguments. New test files should not depend on this, but should
974 explicitly include
975 eval ::tcltest::configure $::argv
977 or
979 ::tcltest::configure {*}$::argv
981 to establish a configuration from command line arguments.
983
985 There are two known issues related to nested evaluations of test. The
986 first issue relates to the stack level in which test scripts are exe‐
987 cuted. Tests nested within other tests may be executed at the same
988 stack level as the outermost test. For example, in the following code:
989 test level-1.1 {level 1} {
991 -body {
992 test level-2.1 {level 2} {
993 }
994 }
995 }
996 any script executed in level-2.1 may be executed at the same stack
998 level as the script defined for level-1.1.
999 In addition, while two tests have been run, results will only be
1001 reported by cleanupTests for tests at the same level as test level-1.1.
1002 However, test results for all tests run prior to level-1.1 will be
1003 available when test level-2.1 runs. What this means is that if you try
1004 to access the test results for test level-2.1, it will may say that “m”
1005 tests have run, “n” tests have been skipped, “o” tests have passed and
1006 “p” tests have failed, where “m”, “n”, “o”, and “p” refer to tests that
1007 were run at the same test level as test level-1.1.
1008 Implementation of output and error comparison in the test command
1010 depends on usage of puts in your application code. Output is inter‐
1011 cepted by redefining the global puts command while the defined test
1012 script is being run. Errors thrown by C procedures or printed directly
1013 from C applications will not be caught by the test command. Therefore,
1014 usage of the -output and -errorOutput options to test is useful only
1015 for pure Tcl applications that use puts to produce output.
1016
1018 test, test harness, test suite
1019tcltest 2.3 tcltest(n)