The London Perl and Raku Workshop takes place on 26th Oct 2024. If your company depends on Perl, please consider sponsoring and/or attending.

NAME

TestML - A Generic Software Testing Meta Language

SYNOPSIS

    # file t/testml/encode.tml
    %TestML: 1.0

    %Title: Tests for AcmeEncode
    %Plan: 3

    *text.apply_rot13()  == *rot13;
    *text.apply_md5()    == *md5;

    === Encode some poetry
    --- text
    There once was a fellow named Ingy,
    Combining languages twas his Thingy.
    --- rot13
    Gurer bapr jnf n sryybj anzrq Vatl,
    Pbzovavat ynathntrf gjnf uvf Guvatl.
    --- md5: 7a1538ff9fc8edf8ea55d02d0b0658be

    === Encode a password
    --- text: soopersekrit
    --- md5: 64002c26dcc62c1d6d0f1cb908de1435

This TestML document defines 2 assertions, and defines 2 data blocks. The first block has 3 data points, but the second one has only 2. Therefore the rot13 assertion applies only to the first block, while the the md5 assertion applies to both. This results in a total of 3 tests, which is specified in the meta Plan statement in the document.

To run this test you would have a normal test file that looks like this:

    use TestML::Runner::TAP;

    TestML::Runner::TAP->new(
        document => 'testml/encode.tml',
        bridge => 't::Bridge',
    )->run();

or more simply:

    use TestML -run,
        -document => 'testml/encode.tml',
        -bridge => 't::Bridge';

The apply_* functions are defined in the bridge class that is specified outside this test (t/Bridge.pm).

DESCRIPTION

TestML is a generic, programming language agnostic, meta language for writing unit tests. The idea is that you can use the same test files in multiple implementations of a given programming idea. Then you can be more certain that your application written in, say, Python matches your Perl implementation.

In a nutshell you write a bunch of data tests that have inputs and expected results. Using a simple syntax, you specify what functions the data must pass through to produce the expected results. You use a bridge class to write the functions that pass the data through your application.

SEE ALSO

See http://www.testml.org/ for more information on TestML.

AUTHOR

Ingy döt Net <ingy@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2009, 2010. Ingy döt Net.

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

See http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html