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Test-Inline-2.00_05
River stage one • 5 direct dependents • 7 total dependents
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/ Test::Inline

NAME

Test::Inline - Inlining your tests next to the code being tested

DESCRIPTION

Embedding tests allows tests to be placed near the code its testing. This is a nice supplement to the traditional .t files.

It's like XUnit, Perl-style.

How does it work?

Put simply, Test::Inline lets you write small fragments of general or method-specific testing code, and insert it anywhere you want in your modules, inside a specific tagged POD segment, like the following.

  # A fragment of general test code
  
  =begin testing
  
  ok( -f /proc/cpuinfo, 'Host has a standard /proc/cpuinfo file' );
  
  =end testing

  # Completely test a single method
  
  =begin testing label
  
  # Test generation of the <label> HTML tag
  is( My::HTML->label('foo'),        '<label>foo</label>',           '->label(simple) works' );
  is( My::HTML->label('bar', 'foo'), '<label for="bar">foo</label>', '->label(for) works'    );
  
  =end testing

You can add as many, or as few, of these chunks of tests as you wish. The key condition when writing them is that they should be conceptually indepdendant of each other. Each chunk of testing code should not die or crash if it is run before or after another chunk.

Using pod2test or another test compiler, you can then transform these chunks in one file, or an entire tree of modules, into a one or more standard Test::More-based test scripts.

These test scripts can be executed as normal.

What is Test::Inline good for?

Firstly, Test::Inline is incredibly useful for doing ad-hoc unit testing.

In any large groups of modules, you can add testing code here, there and everywhere, anywhere you want in fact, and the next time the test compiler is run, a test script will just appear.

It's also useful for systematically testing all self-contained code.

That is, any code which can be independantly tested from external dependencies such as databases, and that has no side-effects on external systems.

All of this code, written by multiple people, can be checked for internal consistency, you can check it's API, anything you like, in great detail.

What is Test::Inline bad for?

Test::Inline is not a complete testing solution, and there are several types of testing you probably DON'T want to do with it.

  • Static testing across the entire codebase

  • Functional testing

  • Tests with side-effects such as those that might change a testing database

Getting Started

... to be completed

METHODS

METHODS

new

  my $Tests = Test::Inline->new(
          verbose  => 1,
          output   => 'auto',
          manifest => 'auto.manifest',
          );

The new constructor creates a new generation framework. Once the constructor has been used to create the generator, the add_class method can be used to specify classes, or class heirachies, to generate tests for.

  • verbose - The verbose option causes the generator to write state and debugging information to STDOUT as it runs.

  • manifest - The manifest option, if provided, will cause a manifest file to be created and written to disk. The manifest file contains a list of all the generated test files, but listed in the order they should be processed to best satisfy the class-level dependency of the tests.

  • check_count - The check_count value controls how strictly the test script will watch the number of tests that have been executed.

    When set to false, the script does no count checking other than the standard total count for scripts (where all section counts are known)

    When set to 1 (the default), Test::Inline does smart count checking, doing section-by-section checking for known-count sections only when the total for the entire script is not known.

    When set to 2 or higher, Test::Inline does full count checking, doing section-by-section checking for every section with a known number of tests.

  • file_content - The file_content option should be provided as a CODE reference, which will be passed as arguments the Test::Inline object, and a single Test::Inline::Script object, and should return a string containing the contents of the resulting test file. This will be written to the OutputHandler.

  • output - The output option provides the location of the directory where the tests will be written to. It should both already exist, and be writable. If using a customer OutputHandler, the value of output refers to the location within the OutputHandler the files will be written to.

  • InputHandler - The InputHandler option, if provided, supplies an alternative FileHandler from which source modules are retrieved.

  • OuputHandler - The OutputHandler option, if provided, supplies an alternative FileHandler to which the resulting test scripts are written.

Returns a new Test::Inline object on success. Returns undef if there is a problem with one of the options.

ExtractHandler

The ExtractHandler accessor returns the object that will be used to extract the test sections from the source code.

InputHandler

The InputHandler method returns the file handler object that will be used to find and load the source code.

OutputHandler

The OutputHandler accessor returns the file handler object that the generated test scripts will be written to.

add $file, \$source, $Handle

The add method is a parameter-sensitive method for adding something to the build schedule.

It takes as argument a file path, a directory path, a reference to a SCALAR containing perl code, or an IO::Handle (or subclass) object. It will retrieve code from the parameter as appropriate, parse it, and create zero or more Test::Inline::Script objects representing the test scripts that will be generated for that source code.

Returns the number of test scripts added, which could be zero, or undef on error.

add_class

  $Tests->add_class( 'Foo::Bar' );
  $Tests->add_class( 'Foo::Bar', recursive => 1 );

The add_class method adds a class to the list of those to have their tests generated. Optionally, the recursive option can be provided to add not just the class you provide, but all classes below it as well.

Returns the number of classes found with inline tests, and added, including 0 if no classes with tests are found. Returns undef if an error occurs while adding the class or it's children.

add_all

The add_all method will search the InputHandler for all *.pm files, and add them to the generation set.

Returns the total number of test scripts added, which may be zero, or undef on error.

classes

The classes method returns a list of the names of all the classes that have been added to the Inline object, or the null list () if nothing has been added.

class

For a given class name, fetches the Test::Inline::Script object for that class, if it has been added to the Inline object. Returns undef if the class has not been added to the Inline object.

filenames

For all of the classes added, the filenames method generates a map of the filenames that the test files for the various classes should be written to.

Returns a reference to a hash with the classes as keys, and filenames as values. Returns 0 if there are no files to write. Returns undef on error.

schedule

While the filenames method generates a map of the files for the various classes, the schedule returns the list of file names in the order in which they should actually be executed.

Returns a reference to an array containing the file names as strings. Returns 0 if there are no files to write. Returns undef on error.

manifest

The manifest generates the contents of the manifest file, if it is both wanted and needed.

Returns the content of the manifest file as a normal string, false if it is either not wanted or needed, or undef on error.

save

  $Tests->save;

The save method generates the test files for all classes, and saves them to the test directory.

Returns the number of test files generates. Returns undef on error.

TO DO

- Add support for example sections

- Add support for =for sections

SUPPORT

Bugs should always be submitted via the CPAN bug tracker

http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Test-Inline

Contacts regarding professional support, assistance, or customisations for large scale uses of Test::Inline is available from http://phase-n.com/.

For other issues, contact the maintainer.

AUTHOR

Adam Kennedy (Maintainer), http://ali.as/, cpan@ali.as

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to Phase N (http://phase-n.com/) for permitting the open sourcing and release of this distribution.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2004 - 2005 Phase N Austalia. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.