NAME

simple_scan - scan a set of Web pages for strings present/absent

SYNOPSIS

  simple_scan [--generate] [--run] {file file file ...}

USAGE

  # Run the tests in the files supplied on the command line.
  # --run (or -run; we're flexible) is assumed if you give no switches.
  % simple_scan file1 file2 file3

  # Generate a set of tests and save them, then run them.
  % <complex pipe> | simple_scan --generate > pipe_scan.t

  # Run one simple test
  % echo "http://yahoo.com yahoo Y Look for yahoo.com"  | simple_scan -run

DESCRIPTION

simple_scan reads either files supplied on the command line, or standard input. It creates and runs, or prints, or even both, a Test::WWW::Simple test for the criteria supplied to it.

simple_scan's input should be in the following format:

  <URL> <pattern> <Y|N> <comment>

The URL is any URL; pattern is a Perl regular expression, delimited by slashes; Y|N is Y if the pattern should match, or N if the pattern should not match; and comment is any arbitrary text you like (as long as it's all on the same line as everything else).

COMMAND-LINE SWITCHES

We use Getopt::Long to get the command-line options, so we're really very flexible as to how they're entered. You can use either one dash (as in -foo) or two (as in --bar). You only need to enter the minimum number or characters to match a given switch.

--run

--run tells simple_scan to immediately run the tests it's created. Can be abbreviated to -r.

This option is mosst useful for one-shot tests that you're not planning to run repeatedly.

--generate

--generate tells simple_scan to print the test it's generated on the standard output.

This option is useful to build up a test suite to be reused later.

--warn

--warn turns on the reporting of minor problems (at present, only "there are no tests in your input file").

Useful if you're autogenerating tests and want to make sure that in fact you did actually generate some.

Both -r and -g can be specified at the same time to run a test and print it simultaneously; this is useful when you want to save a test to be run later as well as right now without having to regenerate the test.

PRAGMAS

Pragmas are ways to influence what simple_scan does when generating tests. They don't output anything themselves.

Pragmas are specified with %% in column 1 and the pragma name immediately following. Any arguments are supplied after a colon, like this:

   %%foo: bar baz

This invokes the foo pragma with the argument bar baz.

cache

This turns on Test::WWW::Simple's internal URL caching. If you run more than one test against a specific URL, Test::WWW::Simple will reuse its internally-saved version of the page instead of refetching it. Useful for speed if you know your URLs shouldn't change on refetch, or if you want to "freeze" the page for a while to run several different tests on it (for example, to check for internal consistency).

nocache

This is the default; if you reaccess a page, Test::WWW::Simple goes out and gets it again. Slower, but if you really expect your page to change when it's fetched again and you want this to happen, specify %%nocache.

xx

The xx pragma allows for very simple-minded internationalization. It assumes that you want to substitute each of a list of two-character country codes into a string (most likely somewhere in the URL, but possibly in the comment too). simple_scan will do this for you, creating a test for each country code you specify. For instance:

   %%xx: es au my jp
   http://>xx<.mysite.com/     /blargh/  Y  look for blargh (>xx<)

This would generate 4 tests, for es.mysite.com, au.mysite.com, c<my.mysite.com>, and jp.mysite.com, all looking to match blargh somewhere on the page.

agent

The agent pragma allows you to switch user agents during the test. Test::WWW::Simple's default is Windows IE 6, but you can switch it to any of the other user agents supported by WWW::Mechanize.

   http://gemal.dk/browserspy/basic.html /Explorer/ Y Should be Explorer
   %%agent: Mac Safari
   http://gemal.dk/browserspy/basic.html /Safari/ Y Should be Safari

AUTHOR

Joe McMahon <mcmahon@yahoo-inc.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2005 by Yahoo!

This script is free software; you can redistribute it or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.6.1 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

cpanm Test::WWW::Simple

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Test::WWW::Simple