NAME

Test2::Aggregate - Aggregate tests

SYNOPSIS

    use Test2::Aggregate;

    Test2::Aggregate::run_tests(
        dirs => \@test_dirs
    );

    done_testing();

VERSION

Version 0.10_02

DESCRIPTION

Aggregates all tests specified in dirs (which can even be individual tests), to avoid forking, reloading etc that can help with performance (dramatically if you have numerous small tests) and also facilitate group profiling. Test files are expected to end in .t and are run as subtests of a single aggregate test.

A bit similar, but simpler in concept and execution to Test::Aggregate, which makes it more likely to work with your test suite (especially if you use modern tools like Test2). It does not even try to package each test by default, which may be good or bad (e.g. redefines), depending on your requirements.

Generally, the way to use this module is to try to aggregate sets of quick tests (e.g. unit tests). Try to iterativelly add tests to the aggregator dropping those that do not work.

METHODS

run_tests

    my $stats = Test2::Aggregate::run_tests(
        dirs          => \@dirs,              # optional if lists defined
        lists         => \@lists,             # optional if dirs defined
        root          => '/testroot/',        # optional
        load_modules  => \@modules,           # optional
        package       => 0,                   # optional
        shuffle       => 0,                   # optional
        sort          => 0,                   # optional
        reverse       => 0,                   # optional
        unique        => 1,                   # optional
        repeat        => 1,                   # optional, requires Test2::Plugin::BailOnFail for < 0
        slow          => 0,                   # optional
        override      => \%override,          # optional, requires Sub::Override
        stats_output  => $stats_output_path,  # optional
        extend_stats  => 0,                   # optional
        test_warnings => 0                    # optional
    );

Runs the aggregate tests. Returns a hashref with stats like this:

  $stats = {
    'test.t' => {
      'test_no'   => 1,                 # numbering starts at 1
      'pass_perc' => 100,               # for single runs pass/fail is 100/0
      'timestamp' => '20190705T145043', # start of test
      'time'      => '0.1732',          # seconds - only with stats_output
      'warnings'  => $STDERR            # only with test_warnings on non empty STDERR
    }
  };

The parameters to pass:

• dirs (either this or lists is required)

  An arrayref containing directories which will be searched recursively, or even individual tests. The directories (unless shuffle or reverse are true) will be processed and tests run in order specified.

• lists (either this or dirs is required)

  Arrayref of flat files from which each line will be pushed to dirs (so they have a lower precedence - note root still applies).

• root (optional)

  If defined, must be a valid root directory that will prefix all dirs and lists items. You may want to set it to './' if you want dirs relative to the current directory and the dot is not in your @INC.

• load_modules (optional)

  Arrayref with modules to be loaded (with eval "use ...") at the start of the test. Useful for testing modules with special namespace requirements.

• package (optional)

  Will package each test in its own namespace (no redefine warnings etc).

• override (optional)

  Pass Sub::Override key/values as a hashref.

• repeat (optional)

  Number of times to repeat the test(s) (default is 1 for a single run). If repeat is negative, the tests will repeat until they fail (or produce a warning if test_warnings is also set).

• unique (optional)

  Since v0.11 duplicate tests are by default removed from the running list as that could mess up the statistics output. You can still set it to a false value to allow duplicate tests to be in the list.

• shuffle (optional)

  Random order of tests if set to true. Will override sort.

• sort (optional)

  Sort tests alphabetically if set to true. Provides a way to fix the test order across systems.

• reverse (optional)

  Reverse order of tests if set to true.

• slow (optional)

  When true, tests will be skipped if the environment variable SKIP_SLOW is set.

• test_warnings (optional)

  Tests for warnings over all the tests if set to true - this is added as a final test which expects zero as the number of tests which had STDERR output. The STDERR output of each test will be printed at the end of the test run (and included in the test run result hash), so if you want to see warnings the moment they are generated (for debugging etc), then leave this option disabled.

• stats_output_path (optional)

  stats_output_path when defined specifies a path where a file with running time per test (average if multiple iterations are specified), starting with the slowest test and passing percentage gets written. On negative repeat the stats of each successful run will be written separately instead of the averages. The name of the file is caller_script-YYYYMMDDTHHmmss.txt. If - is passed instead of a path, then STDOUT will be used instead. The timing stats are useful because the test harness doesn't normally measure time per subtest.

• extend_stats (optional)

  This option is to allow for the default output of stats_output_path to be fixed/reliable and anything added in future versions will only be written when extend_stats is enabled. Currently starting date/time in ISO_8601 is added when the extend option is set.

USAGE NOTES

Not all tests can be modified to run under the aggregator, it is not intended for tests that require an isolated environment, do overrides etc. For other tests which can potentially run under the aggregator, sometimes very simple changes may be needed like giving unique names to subs (or not warning for redefines, or trying the package option), replacing things that complain, restoring the environment at the end of the test etc.

Unit tests are usually great for aggregating. You could use the hash that run_tests returns in a script that tries to add more tests automatically to an aggregate list to see which added tests passed and keep them, dropping failures.

The environment variable AGGREGATE_TESTS will be set while the tests are running for your convenience. Example usage is a module that can only be loaded once, so you load it on the aggregated test file and then use something like this in the individual test files:

 eval 'use My::Module' unless $ENV{AGGREGATE_TESTS};

Trying to aggregate too many tests into a single one can be counter-intuitive as you would ideally want to parallelize your test suite (so a super-long aggregated test continuing after the rest are done will slow down the suite). And in general more tests will run aggregated if they are grouped so that tests that can't be aggregated together are in different groups.

In general you can call Test2::Aggregate::run_tests multiple times in a test and even load run_tests with tests that already contain another run_tests, the only real issue with multiple calls is that if you use repeat < 0 on a call, Test2::Plugin::BailOnFail is loaded so any subsequent failure, on any following run_tests call will trigger a Bail.

AUTHOR

Dimitrios Kechagias, <dkechag at cpan.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-test2-aggregate at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at https://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Test2-Aggregate. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

GIT

https://github.com/SpareRoom/Test2-Aggregate

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2019, SpareRoom.com

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

cpanm Test2::Aggregate

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Test2::Aggregate