PROVE(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PROVE(1)NAMEprove-- A command-line tool for running tests against
Test::Harness
SYNOPSISprove [options] [files/directories]
Options:
-b, --blib Adds blib/lib to the path for your tests, a la "use blib".
-d, --debug Includes extra debugging information.
-D, --dry Dry run: Show the tests to run, but don't run them.
--ext=x Extensions (defaults to .t)
-h, --help Display this help
-H, --man Longer manpage for prove-I Add libraries to @INC, as Perl's -I
-l, --lib Add lib to the path for your tests.
-r, --recurse Recursively descend into directories.
-s, --shuffle Run the tests in a random order.
-T Enable tainting checks
-t Enable tainting warnings
--timer Print elapsed time after each test file
-v, --verbose Display standard output of test scripts while running them.
-V, --version Display version info
Single-character options may be stacked. Default options
may be set by specifying the PROVE_SWITCHES environment
variable.
OVERVIEWprove is a command-line interface to the test-running func-
tionality of "Test::Harness". With no arguments, it will
run all tests in the current directory.
Shell metacharacters may be used with command lines options
and will be exanded via "glob".
PROVE VS. "MAKE TEST"prove has a number of advantages over "make test" when doing
development.
* prove is designed as a development tool
Perl users typically run the test harness through a
makefile via "make test". That's fine for module dis-
tributions, but it's suboptimal for a test/code/debug
development cycle.
* prove is granular
prove lets your run against only the files you want to
check. Running "prove t/live/ t/master.t" checks every
*.t in t/live, plus t/master.t.
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PROVE(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PROVE(1)
* prove has an easy verbose mode
prove has a "-v" option to see the raw output from the
tests. To do this with "make test", you must set
"HARNESS_VERBOSE=1" in the environment.
* prove can run under taint mode
prove's "-T" runs your tests under "perl -T", and "-t"
runs them under "perl -t".
* prove can shuffle tests
You can use prove's "--shuffle" option to try to excite
problems that don't show up when tests are run in the
same order every time.
* prove doesn't rely on a make tool
Not everyone wants to write a makefile, or use
ExtUtils::MakeMaker to do so. prove has no external
dependencies.
* Not everything is a module
More and more users are using Perl's testing tools out-
side the context of a module distribution, and may not
even use a makefile at all.
COMMAND LINE OPTIONS-b, --blib
Adds blib/lib to the path for your tests, a la "use blib".
-d, --debug
Include debug information about how prove is being run.
This option doesn't show the output from the test scripts.
That's handled by -v,--verbose.
-D, --dry
Dry run: Show the tests to run, but don't run them.
--ext=extension
Specify extensions of the test files to run. By default,
these are .t, but you may have other non-.t test files, most
likely .sh shell scripts. The --ext is repeatable.
-I
Add libraries to @INC, as Perl's -I.
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PROVE(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PROVE(1)-l, --lib
Add "lib" to @INC. Equivalent to "-Ilib".
-r, --recurse
Descends into subdirectories of any directories specified,
looking for tests.
-s, --shuffle
Sometimes tests are accidentally dependent on tests that
have been run before. This switch will shuffle the tests to
be run prior to running them, thus ensuring that hidden
dependencies in the test order are likely to be revealed.
The author hopes the run the algorithm on the preceding sen-
tence to see if he can produce something slightly less awk-
ward.
-t
Runs test programs under perl's -t taint warning mode.
-T
Runs test programs under perl's -T taint mode.
--timer
Print elapsed time after each test file
-v, --verbose
Display standard output of test scripts while running them.
Also sets TEST_VERBOSE in case your tests rely on them.
-V, --version
Display version info.
BUGS
Please use the CPAN bug ticketing system at
<http://rt.cpan.org/>. You can also mail bugs, fixes and
enhancements to "<bug-test-harness@rt.cpan.org>".
TODO
+ Shuffled tests must be recreatable
AUTHORS
Andy Lester "<andy@petdance.com>"
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PROVE(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PROVE(1)COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2005 by Andy Lester "<andy@petdance.com>".
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>.
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