NAME

Apache::Test - Facilitates testing of Apache::* modules

SYNOPSIS

 # In Makefile.PL
 use Apache::test;
 my %params = Apache::test->get_test_params();
 Apache::test->write_httpd_conf(%params, include => $more_directives);
 *MY::test = sub { Apache::test->MM_test(%params) };

 # In t/*.t script (or test.pl)
 (Some methods of Doug's that I haven't reviewed or documented yet)

DESCRIPTION

This module helps authors of Apache::* modules write test suites that can query an actual running Apache server with mod_perl and their modules loaded into it. Its functionality is generally separated into methods that go in a Makefile.PL to configure, start, and stop the server, and methods that go in one of the test scripts to make HTTP queries and manage the results.

METHODS

get_test_params()

This will ask the user a few questions about where the httpd binary is, and what user/group/port should be used when running the server. It will return a hash of the information it discovers. This hash is suitable for passing to the write_httpd_conf() method.

write_httpd_conf(%params)

This will write a basic httpd.conf file suitable for starting a HTTP server during the 'make test' stage. A hash of key/value pairs that affect the written file can be passed as arguments. The following keys are recognized:

• conf_file

  The path to the file that will be created. Default is 't/httpd.conf'.

• port

  The port that the Apache server will listen on.

• user

  The user that the Apache server will run as.

• group

  The group that the Apache server will run as.

• include

  Any additional text you want added at the end of the config file. Typically you'll have some PerlModule and Perl*Handler directives to pass control to the module you're testing. The blib/ directories will be added to the @INC path when searching for modules, so that's nice.

MM_test(%params)

This method helps write a Makefile that supports running a web server during the 'make test' stage. When you execute 'make test', 'make' will run 'make start_httpd', 'make run_tests', and 'make kill_httpd' in sequence. You can also run these commands independently if you want.

Pass the hash of parameters returned by get_test_params() as an argument to MM_test().

To patch into the ExtUtils::MakeMaker wizardry (voodoo?), typically you'll do the following in your Makefile.PL:

  *MY::test = sub { Apache::test->MM_test(%params) };

fetch

  Apache::test->fetch($request);
  Apache::test->fetch($user_agent, $request);

Call this method in a test script in order to fetch a page from the running web server. If you pass two arguments, the first should be an LWP::UserAgent object, and the second should specify the request to make of the server. If you only pass one argument, it specifies the request to make.

The request can be specified either by a simple string indicating the URI to fetch, or by a hash reference, which gives you more control over the request. The following keys are recognized in the hash:

• uri

  The URI to fetch from the server. If the URI does not begin with "http", we prepend "http://localhost:$PORT" so that we make requests of the test server.

• method

  The request method to use. Default is 'GET'.

• content

  The request content body. Typically used to simulate HTML fill-out form submission for POST requests. Default is null.

• headers

  A hash of headers you want sent with the request. You might use this to send cookies or provide some application-specific header.

If you don't provide a 'headers' parameter and you set the 'method' to 'POST', then we assume that you're trying to simulate HTML form submission and we add a 'Content_Type' header with a value of 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'.

In a scalar context, fetch() returns the content of the web server's response. In a list context, fetch() returns the content and the HTTP::Response object itself. This can be handy if you need to check the response headers, or the HTTP return code, or whatever.

EXAMPLES

No good examples yet. Example submissions are welcome. In the meantime, see http://forum.swarthmore.edu/~ken/modules/Apache-AuthCookie/ , which I'm retrofitting to use Apache::test.

TO DO

The MM_test method doesn't try to be very smart, it just writes the text that seems to work in my configuration. I am morally against using the 'make' command for installing Perl modules (though of course I do it anyway), so I haven't looked into this very much. Send bug reports or better (patches).

I've got lots of code in my Apache::AuthCookie module (etc.) that assists in actually making the queries of the running server. I plan to add that to this module, but first I need to compare what's already here that does the same stuff.

KUDOS

To Doug MacEachern for writing the first version of this module.

To caelum@debian.org (Rafael Kitover) for contributing the code to parse existing httpd.conf files for --enable-shared=max and DSOs.

CAVEATS

Except for making sure that the mod_perl distribution itself can run 'make test' okay, I haven't tried very hard to keep compatibility with older versions of this module. In particular MM_test() has changed and probably isn't usable in the old ways, since some of its assumptions are gone. But none of this was ever documented, and MM_test() doesn't seem to actually be used anywhere in the mod_perl disribution, so I don't feel so bad about it.

AUTHOR

Doug MacEachern (original version)

Ken Williams (latest changes and this documentation)

cpanm mod_perl

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install mod_perl