NAME

  Test - provides a simple framework for writing test scripts

SYNOPSIS

  use strict;
  use Test;

  # use a BEGIN block so we print our plan before MyModule is loaded
  BEGIN { plan tests => 14, todo => [3,4] }

  # load your module...
  use MyModule;

  ok(0); # failure
  ok(1); # success

  ok(0); # ok, expected failure (see todo list, above)
  ok(1); # surprise success!

  ok(0,1);             # failure: '0' ne '1'
  ok('broke','fixed'); # failure: 'broke' ne 'fixed'
  ok('fixed','fixed'); # success: 'fixed' eq 'fixed'
  ok('fixed',qr/x/);   # success: 'fixed' =~ qr/x/

  ok(sub { 1+1 }, 2);  # success: '2' eq '2'
  ok(sub { 1+1 }, 3);  # failure: '2' ne '3'
  ok(0, int(rand(2));  # (just kidding :-)

  my @list = (0,0);
  ok @list, 3, "\@list=".join(',',@list);      #extra diagnostics
  ok 'segmentation fault', '/(?i)success/';    #regex match

  skip($feature_is_missing, ...);    #do platform specific test

DESCRIPTION

Test::Harness expects to see particular output when it executes tests. This module aims to make writing proper test scripts just a little bit easier (and less error prone :-).

TEST TYPES

• NORMAL TESTS

  These tests are expected to succeed. If they don't something's screwed up!

• SKIPPED TESTS

  Skip is for tests that might or might not be possible to run depending on the availability of platform specific features. The first argument should evaluate to true (think "yes, please skip") if the required feature is not available. After the first argument, skip works exactly the same way as do normal tests.

• TODO TESTS

  TODO tests are designed for maintaining an executable TODO list. These tests are expected NOT to succeed. If a TODO test does succeed, the feature in question should not be on the TODO list, now should it?

  Packages should NOT be released with succeeding TODO tests. As soon as a TODO test starts working, it should be promoted to a normal test and the newly working feature should be documented in the release notes or change log.

RETURN VALUE

Both ok and skip return true if their test succeeds and false otherwise in a scalar context.

ONFAIL

  BEGIN { plan test => 4, onfail => sub { warn "CALL 911!" } }

While test failures should be enough, extra diagnostics can be triggered at the end of a test run. onfail is passed an array ref of hash refs that describe each test failure. Each hash will contain at least the following fields: package, repetition, and result. (The file, line, and test number are not included because their correspondance to a particular test is tenuous.) If the test had an expected value or a diagnostic string, these will also be included.

The optional onfail hook might be used simply to print out the version of your package and/or how to report problems. It might also be used to generate extremely sophisticated diagnostics for a particularly bizarre test failure. However it's not a panacea. Core dumps or other unrecoverable errors prevent the onfail hook from running. (It is run inside an END block.) Besides, onfail is probably over-kill in most cases. (Your test code should be simpler than the code it is testing, yes?)

SEE ALSO

Test::Harness and, perhaps, test coverage analysis tools.

AUTHOR

Copyright (c) 1998 Joshua Nathaniel Pritikin. All rights reserved.

This package is free software and is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the Perl Artistic License (see http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html)