tcltest(n) Tcl Bundled Packages tcltest(n)______________________________________________________________________________NAMEtcltest - Test harness support code and utilities
SYNOPSIS
package require tcltest ?2.3?
tcltest::test name description ?-option value ...?
tcltest::test name description ?constraints? body result
tcltest::loadTestedCommands
tcltest::makeDirectory name ?directory?
tcltest::removeDirectory name ?directory?
tcltest::makeFile contents name ?directory?
tcltest::removeFile name ?directory?
tcltest::viewFile name ?directory?
tcltest::cleanupTests ?runningMultipleTests?
tcltest::runAllTests
tcltest::configure
tcltest::configure -option
tcltest::configure -option value ?-option value ...?
tcltest::customMatch mode command
tcltest::testConstraint constraint ?value?
tcltest::outputChannel ?channelID?
tcltest::errorChannel ?channelID?
tcltest::interpreter ?interp?
tcltest::debug ?level?
tcltest::errorFile ?filename?
tcltest::limitConstraints ?boolean?
tcltest::loadFile ?filename?
tcltest::loadScript ?script?
tcltest::match ?patternList?
tcltest::matchDirectories ?patternList?
tcltest::matchFiles ?patternList?
tcltest::outputFile ?filename?
tcltest::preserveCore ?level?
tcltest::singleProcess ?boolean?
tcltest::skip ?patternList?
tcltest::skipDirectories ?patternList?
tcltest::skipFiles ?patternList?
tcltest::temporaryDirectory ?directory?
tcltest::testsDirectory ?directory?
tcltest::verbose ?level?
tcltest::test name description optionList
tcltest::bytestring string
tcltest::normalizeMsg msg
tcltest::normalizePath pathVar
tcltest::workingDirectory ?dir?
_________________________________________________________________DESCRIPTION
The tcltest package provides several utility commands useful in the
construction of test suites for code instrumented to be run by evalua‐
tion of Tcl commands. Notably the built-in commands of the Tcl library
itself are tested by a test suite using the tcltest package.
All the commands provided by the tcltest package are defined in and
exported from the ::tcltest namespace, as indicated in the SYNOPSIS
above. In the following sections, all commands will be described by
their simple names, in the interest of brevity.
The central command of tcltest is test that defines and runs a test.
Testing with test involves evaluation of a Tcl script and comparing the
result to an expected result, as configured and controlled by a number
of options. Several other commands provided by tcltest govern the con‐
figuration of test and the collection of many test commands into test
suites.
See CREATING TEST SUITES WITH TCLTEST below for an extended example of
how to use the commands of tcltest to produce test suites for your Tcl-
enabled code.
COMMANDS
test name description ?-option value ...?
Defines and possibly runs a test with the name name and descrip‐
tion description. The name and description of a test are used
in messages reported by test during the test, as configured by
the options of tcltest. The remaining option value arguments to
test define the test, including the scripts to run, the condi‐
tions under which to run them, the expected result, and the
means by which the expected and actual results should be com‐
pared. See TESTS below for a complete description of the valid
options and how they define a test. The test command returns an
empty string.
test name description ?constraints? body result
This form of test is provided to support test suites written for
version 1 of the tcltest package, and also a simpler interface
for a common usage. It is the same as “test name description
-constraints constraints -body body -result result”. All other
options to test take their default values. When constraints is
omitted, this form of test can be distinguished from the first
because all options begin with “-”.
loadTestedCommands
Evaluates in the caller's context the script specified by con‐
figure -load or configure -loadfile. Returns the result of that
script evaluation, including any error raised by the script.
Use this command and the related configuration options to pro‐
vide the commands to be tested to the interpreter running the
test suite.
makeFile contents name ?directory?
Creates a file named name relative to directory directory and
write contents to that file using the encoding encoding system.
If contents does not end with a newline, a newline will be
appended so that the file named name does end with a newline.
Because the system encoding is used, this command is only suit‐
able for making text files. The file will be removed by the
next evaluation of cleanupTests, unless it is removed by remove‐
File first. The default value of directory is the directory
configure -tmpdir. Returns the full path of the file created.
Use this command to create any text file required by a test with
contents as needed.
removeFile name ?directory?
Forces the file referenced by name to be removed. This file
name should be relative to directory. The default value of
directory is the directory configure -tmpdir. Returns an empty
string. Use this command to delete files created by makeFile.
makeDirectory name ?directory?
Creates a directory named name relative to directory directory.
The directory will be removed by the next evaluation of
cleanupTests, unless it is removed by removeDirectory first.
The default value of directory is the directory configure
-tmpdir. Returns the full path of the directory created. Use
this command to create any directories that are required to
exist by a test.
removeDirectory name ?directory?
Forces the directory referenced by name to be removed. This
directory should be relative to directory. The default value of
directory is the directory configure -tmpdir. Returns an empty
string. Use this command to delete any directories created by
makeDirectory.
viewFile file ?directory?
Returns the contents of file, except for any final newline, just
as read -nonewline would return. This file name should be rela‐
tive to directory. The default value of directory is the direc‐
tory configure -tmpdir. Use this command as a convenient way to
turn the contents of a file generated by a test into the result
of that test for matching against an expected result. The con‐
tents of the file are read using the system encoding, so its
usefulness is limited to text files.
cleanupTests
Intended to clean up and summarize after several tests have been
run. Typically called once per test file, at the end of the
file after all tests have been completed. For best effective‐
ness, be sure that the cleanupTests is evaluated even if an
error occurs earlier in the test file evaluation.
Prints statistics about the tests run and removes files that
were created by makeDirectory and makeFile since the last
cleanupTests. Names of files and directories in the directory
configure -tmpdir created since the last cleanupTests, but not
created by makeFile or makeDirectory are printed to outputChan‐
nel. This command also restores the original shell environment,
as described by the global env array. Returns an empty string.
runAllTests
This is a master command meant to run an entire suite of tests,
spanning multiple files and/or directories, as governed by the
configurable options of tcltest. See RUNNING ALL TESTS below
for a complete description of the many variations possible with
runAllTests.
CONFIGURATION COMMANDS
configure
Returns the list of configurable options supported by tcltest.
See CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS below for the full list of options,
their valid values, and their effect on tcltest operations.
configure option
Returns the current value of the supported configurable option
option. Raises an error if option is not a supported config‐
urable option.
configure option value ?-option value ...?
Sets the value of each configurable option option to the corre‐
sponding value value, in order. Raises an error if an option is
not a supported configurable option, or if value is not a valid
value for the corresponding option, or if a value is not pro‐
vided. When an error is raised, the operation of configure is
halted, and subsequent option value arguments are not processed.
If the environment variable ::env(TCLTEST_OPTIONS) exists when
the tcltest package is loaded (by package require tcltest) then
its value is taken as a list of arguments to pass to configure.
This allows the default values of the configuration options to
be set by the environment.
customMatch mode script
Registers mode as a new legal value of the -match option to
test. When the -match mode option is passed to test, the script
script will be evaluated to compare the actual result of evalu‐
ating the body of the test to the expected result. To perform
the match, the script is completed with two additional words,
the expected result, and the actual result, and the completed
script is evaluated in the global namespace. The completed
script is expected to return a boolean value indicating whether
or not the results match. The built-in matching modes of test
are exact, glob, and regexp.
testConstraint constraint ?boolean?
Sets or returns the boolean value associated with the named con‐
straint. See TEST CONSTRAINTS below for more information.
interpreter ?executableName?
Sets or returns the name of the executable to be execed by
runAllTests to run each test file when configure -singleproc is
false. The default value for interpreter is the name of the
currently running program as returned by info nameofexecutable.
outputChannel ?channelID?
Sets or returns the output channel ID. This defaults to stdout.
Any test that prints test related output should send that output
to outputChannel rather than letting that output default to std‐
out.
errorChannel ?channelID?
Sets or returns the error channel ID. This defaults to stderr.
Any test that prints error messages should send that output to
errorChannel rather than printing directly to stderr.
SHORTCUT CONFIGURATION COMMANDS
debug ?level?
Same as “configure -debug ?level?”.
errorFile ?filename?
Same as “configure -errfile ?filename?”.
limitConstraints ?boolean?
Same as “configure -limitconstraints ?boolean?”.
loadFile ?filename?
Same as “configure -loadfile ?filename?”.
loadScript ?script?
Same as “configure -load ?script?”.
match ?patternList?
Same as “configure -match ?patternList?”.
matchDirectories ?patternList?
Same as “configure -relateddir ?patternList?”.
matchFiles ?patternList?
Same as “configure -file ?patternList?”.
outputFile ?filename?
Same as “configure -outfile ?filename?”.
preserveCore ?level?
Same as “configure -preservecore ?level?”.
singleProcess ?boolean?
Same as “configure -singleproc ?boolean?”.
skip ?patternList?
Same as “configure -skip ?patternList?”.
skipDirectories ?patternList?
Same as “configure -asidefromdir ?patternList?”.
skipFiles ?patternList?
Same as “configure -notfile ?patternList?”.
temporaryDirectory ?directory?
Same as “configure -tmpdir ?directory?”.
testsDirectory ?directory?
Same as “configure -testdir ?directory?”.
verbose ?level?
Same as “configure -verbose ?level?”.
OTHER COMMANDS
The remaining commands provided by tcltest have better alternatives
provided by tcltest or Tcl itself. They are retained to support exist‐
ing test suites, but should be avoided in new code.
test name description optionList
This form of test was provided to enable passing many options
spanning several lines to test as a single argument quoted by
braces, rather than needing to backslash quote the newlines
between arguments to test. The optionList argument is expected
to be a list with an even number of elements representing option
and value arguments to pass to test. However, these values are
not passed directly, as in the alternate forms of switch.
Instead, this form makes an unfortunate attempt to overthrow
Tcl's substitution rules by performing substitutions on some of
the list elements as an attempt to implement a “do what I mean”
interpretation of a brace-enclosed “block”. The result is
nearly impossible to document clearly, and for that reason this
form is not recommended. See the examples in CREATING TEST
SUITES WITH TCLTEST below to see that this form is really not
necessary to avoid backslash-quoted newlines. If you insist on
using this form, examine the source code of tcltest if you want
to know the substitution details, or just enclose the third
through last argument to test in braces and hope for the best.
workingDirectory ?directoryName?
Sets or returns the current working directory when the test
suite is running. The default value for workingDirectory is the
directory in which the test suite was launched. The Tcl com‐
mands cd and pwd are sufficient replacements.
normalizeMsg msg
Returns the result of removing the “extra” newlines from msg,
where “extra” is rather imprecise. Tcl offers plenty of string
processing commands to modify strings as you wish, and custom‐
Match allows flexible matching of actual and expected results.
normalizePath pathVar
Resolves symlinks in a path, thus creating a path without inter‐
nal redirection. It is assumed that pathVar is absolute. path‐
Var is modified in place. The Tcl command file normalize is a
sufficient replacement.
bytestring string
Construct a string that consists of the requested sequence of
bytes, as opposed to a string of properly formed UTF-8 charac‐
ters using the value supplied in string. This allows the tester
to create denormalized or improperly formed strings to pass to C
procedures that are supposed to accept strings with embedded
NULL types and confirm that a string result has a certain pat‐
tern of bytes. This is exactly equivalent to the Tcl command
encoding convertfrom identity.
TESTS
The test command is the heart of the tcltest package. Its essential
function is to evaluate a Tcl script and compare the result with an
expected result. The options of test define the test script, the envi‐
ronment in which to evaluate it, the expected result, and how the com‐
pare the actual result to the expected result. Some configuration
options of tcltest also influence how test operates.
The valid options for test are summarized:
test name description
?-constraints keywordList|expression?
?-setup setupScript?
?-body testScript?
?-cleanup cleanupScript?
?-result expectedAnswer?
?-output expectedOutput?
?-errorOutput expectedError?
?-returnCodes codeList?
?-match mode?
The name may be any string. It is conventional to choose a name
according to the pattern:
target-majorNum.minorNum
For white-box (regression) tests, the target should be the name of the
C function or Tcl procedure being tested. For black-box tests, the
target should be the name of the feature being tested. Some conven‐
tions call for the names of black-box tests to have the suffix _bb.
Related tests should share a major number. As a test suite evolves, it
is best to have the same test name continue to correspond to the same
test, so that it remains meaningful to say things like “Test foo-1.3
passed in all releases up to 3.4, but began failing in release 3.5.”
During evaluation of test, the name will be compared to the lists of
string matching patterns returned by configure -match, and configure
-skip. The test will be run only if name matches any of the patterns
from configure -match and matches none of the patterns from configure
-skip.
The description should be a short textual description of the test. The
description is included in output produced by the test, typically test
failure messages. Good description values should briefly explain the
purpose of the test to users of a test suite. The name of a Tcl or C
function being tested should be included in the description for regres‐
sion tests. If the test case exists to reproduce a bug, include the
bug ID in the description.
Valid attributes and associated values are:
-constraints keywordList|expression
The optional -constraints attribute can be list of one or more
keywords or an expression. If the -constraints value is a list
of keywords, each of these keywords should be the name of a con‐
straint defined by a call to testConstraint. If any of the
listed constraints is false or does not exist, the test is
skipped. If the -constraints value is an expression, that
expression is evaluated. If the expression evaluates to true,
then the test is run. Note that the expression form of -con‐
straints may interfere with the operation of configure -con‐
straints and configure -limitconstraints, and is not recom‐
mended. Appropriate constraints should be added to any tests
that should not always be run. That is, conditional evaluation
of a test should be accomplished by the -constraints option, not
by conditional evaluation of test. In that way, the same number
of tests are always reported by the test suite, though the num‐
ber skipped may change based on the testing environment. The
default value is an empty list. See TEST CONSTRAINTS below for
a list of built-in constraints and information on how to add
your own constraints.
-setup script
The optional -setup attribute indicates a script that will be
run before the script indicated by the -body attribute. If
evaluation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
default value is an empty script.
-body script
The -body attribute indicates the script to run to carry out the
test, which must return a result that can be checked for cor‐
rectness. If evaluation of script raises an error, the test
will fail (unless the -returnCodes option is used to state that
an error is expected). The default value is an empty script.
-cleanup script
The optional -cleanup attribute indicates a script that will be
run after the script indicated by the -body attribute. If eval‐
uation of script raises an error, the test will fail. The
default value is an empty script.
-match mode
The -match attribute determines how expected answers supplied by
-result, -output, and -errorOutput are compared. Valid values
for mode are regexp, glob, exact, and any value registered by a
prior call to customMatch. The default value is exact.
-result expectedValue
The -result attribute supplies the expectedValue against which
the return value from script will be compared. The default value
is an empty string.
-output expectedValue
The -output attribute supplies the expectedValue against which
any output sent to stdout or outputChannel during evaluation of
the script(s) will be compared. Note that only output printed
using the global puts command is used for comparison. If -out‐
put is not specified, output sent to stdout and outputChannel is
not processed for comparison.
-errorOutput expectedValue
The -errorOutput attribute supplies the expectedValue against
which any output sent to stderr or errorChannel during evalua‐
tion of the script(s) will be compared. Note that only output
printed using the global puts command is used for comparison.
If -errorOutput is not specified, output sent to stderr and
errorChannel is not processed for comparison.
-returnCodes expectedCodeList
The optional -returnCodes attribute supplies expectedCodeList, a
list of return codes that may be accepted from evaluation of the
-body script. If evaluation of the -body script returns a code
not in the expectedCodeList, the test fails. All return codes
known to return, in both numeric and symbolic form, including
extended return codes, are acceptable elements in the expected‐
CodeList. Default value is “ok return”.
To pass, a test must successfully evaluate its -setup, -body, and
-cleanup scripts. The return code of the -body script and its result
must match expected values, and if specified, output and error data
from the test must match expected -output and -errorOutput values. If
any of these conditions are not met, then the test fails. Note that
all scripts are evaluated in the context of the caller of test.
As long as test is called with valid syntax and legal values for all
attributes, it will not raise an error. Test failures are instead
reported as output written to outputChannel. In default operation, a
successful test produces no output. The output messages produced by
test are controlled by the configure -verbose option as described in
CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS below. Any output produced by the test scripts
themselves should be produced using puts to outputChannel or errorChan‐
nel, so that users of the test suite may easily capture output with the
configure -outfile and configure -errfile options, and so that the
-output and -errorOutput attributes work properly.
TEST CONSTRAINTS
Constraints are used to determine whether or not a test should be
skipped. Each constraint has a name, which may be any string, and a
boolean value. Each test has a -constraints value which is a list of
constraint names. There are two modes of constraint control. Most
frequently, the default mode is used, indicated by a setting of config‐
ure -limitconstraints to false. The test will run only if all con‐
straints in the list are true-valued. Thus, the -constraints option of
test is a convenient, symbolic way to define any conditions required
for the test to be possible or meaningful. For example, a test with
-constraints unix will only be run if the constraint unix is true,
which indicates the test suite is being run on a Unix platform.
Each test should include whatever -constraints are required to con‐
strain it to run only where appropriate. Several constraints are pre-
defined in the tcltest package, listed below. The registration of
user-defined constraints is performed by the testConstraint command.
User-defined constraints may appear within a test file, or within the
script specified by the configure -load or configure -loadfile options.
The following is a list of constraints pre-defined by the tcltest pack‐
age itself:
singleTestInterp
This test can only be run if all test files are sourced into a
single interpreter.
unix This test can only be run on any Unix platform.
win This test can only be run on any Windows platform.
nt This test can only be run on any Windows NT platform.
95 This test can only be run on any Windows 95 platform.
98 This test can only be run on any Windows 98 platform.
mac This test can only be run on any Mac platform.
unixOrWin
This test can only be run on a Unix or Windows platform.
macOrWin
This test can only be run on a Mac or Windows platform.
macOrUnix
This test can only be run on a Mac or Unix platform.
tempNotWin
This test can not be run on Windows. This flag is used to tem‐
porarily disable a test.
tempNotMac
This test can not be run on a Mac. This flag is used to tempo‐
rarily disable a test.
unixCrash
This test crashes if it is run on Unix. This flag is used to
temporarily disable a test.
winCrash
This test crashes if it is run on Windows. This flag is used to
temporarily disable a test.
macCrash
This test crashes if it is run on a Mac. This flag is used to
temporarily disable a test.
emptyTest
This test is empty, and so not worth running, but it remains as
a place-holder for a test to be written in the future. This
constraint has value false to cause tests to be skipped unless
the user specifies otherwise.
knownBug
This test is known to fail and the bug is not yet fixed. This
constraint has value false to cause tests to be skipped unless
the user specifies otherwise.
nonPortable
This test can only be run in some known development environment.
Some tests are inherently non-portable because they depend on
things like word length, file system configuration, window man‐
ager, etc. This constraint has value false to cause tests to be
skipped unless the user specifies otherwise.
userInteraction
This test requires interaction from the user. This constraint
has value false to causes tests to be skipped unless the user
specifies otherwise.
interactive
This test can only be run in if the interpreter is in interac‐
tive mode (when the global tcl_interactive variable is set to
1).
nonBlockFiles
This test can only be run if platform supports setting files
into nonblocking mode.
asyncPipeClose
This test can only be run if platform supports async flush and
async close on a pipe.
unixExecs
This test can only be run if this machine has Unix-style com‐
mands cat, echo, sh, wc, rm, sleep, fgrep, ps, chmod, and mkdir
available.
hasIsoLocale
This test can only be run if can switch to an ISO locale.
root This test can only run if Unix user is root.
notRoot
This test can only run if Unix user is not root.
eformat
This test can only run if app has a working version of sprintf
with respect to the “e” format of floating-point numbers.
stdio This test can only be run if interpreter can be opened as a
pipe.
The alternative mode of constraint control is enabled by setting con‐
figure -limitconstraints to true. With that configuration setting, all
existing constraints other than those in the constraint list returned
by configure -constraints are set to false. When the value of config‐
ure -constraints is set, all those constraints are set to true. The
effect is that when both options configure -constraints and configure
-limitconstraints are in use, only those tests including only con‐
straints from the configure -constraints list are run; all others are
skipped. For example, one might set up a configuration with
configure -constraints knownBug \
-limitconstraints true \
-verbose pass
to run exactly those tests that exercise known bugs, and discover
whether any of them pass, indicating the bug had been fixed.
RUNNING ALL TESTS
The single command runAllTests is evaluated to run an entire test
suite, spanning many files and directories. The configuration options
of tcltest control the precise operations. The runAllTests command
begins by printing a summary of its configuration to outputChannel.
Test files to be evaluated are sought in the directory configure -test‐
dir. The list of files in that directory that match any of the pat‐
terns in configure -file and match none of the patterns in configure
-notfile is generated and sorted. Then each file will be evaluated in
turn. If configure -singleproc is true, then each file will be sourced
in the caller's context. If it is false, then a copy of interpreter
will be exec'd to evaluate each file. The multi-process operation is
useful when testing can cause errors so severe that a process termi‐
nates. Although such an error may terminate a child process evaluating
one file, the master process can continue with the rest of the test
suite. In multi-process operation, the configuration of tcltest in the
master process is passed to the child processes as command line argu‐
ments, with the exception of configure -outfile. The runAllTests com‐
mand in the master process collects all output from the child processes
and collates their results into one master report. Any reports of
individual test failures, or messages requested by a configure -verbose
setting are passed directly on to outputChannel by the master process.
After evaluating all selected test files, a summary of the results is
printed to outputChannel. The summary includes the total number of
tests evaluated, broken down into those skipped, those passed, and
those failed. The summary also notes the number of files evaluated,
and the names of any files with failing tests or errors. A list of the
constraints that caused tests to be skipped, and the number of tests
skipped for each is also printed. Also, messages are printed if it
appears that evaluation of a test file has caused any temporary files
to be left behind in configure -tmpdir.
Having completed and summarized all selected test files, runAllTests
then recursively acts on subdirectories of configure -testdir. All
subdirectories that match any of the patterns in configure -relateddir
and do not match any of the patterns in configure -asidefromdir are
examined. If a file named all.tcl is found in such a directory, it
will be sourced in the caller's context. Whether or not an examined
directory contains an all.tcl file, its subdirectories are also scanned
against the configure -relateddir and configure -asidefromdir patterns.
In this way, many directories in a directory tree can have all their
test files evaluated by a single runAllTests command.
CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS
The configure command is used to set and query the configurable options
of tcltest. The valid options are:
-singleproc boolean
Controls whether or not runAllTests spawns a child process for
each test file. No spawning when boolean is true. Default
value is false.
-debug level
Sets the debug level to level, an integer value indicating how
much debugging information should be printed to stdout. Note
that debug messages always go to stdout, independent of the
value of configure -outfile. Default value is 0. Levels are
defined as:
0 Do not display any debug information.
1 Display information regarding whether a test is skipped
because it does not match any of the tests that were speci‐
fied using by configure -match (userSpecifiedNonMatch) or
matches any of the tests specified by configure -skip (user‐
SpecifiedSkip). Also print warnings about possible lack of
cleanup or balance in test files. Also print warnings about
any re-use of test names.
2 Display the flag array parsed by the command line processor,
the contents of the global env array, and all user-defined
variables that exist in the current namespace as they are
used.
3 Display information regarding what individual procs in the
test harness are doing.
-verbose level
Sets the type of output verbosity desired to level, a list of
zero or more of the elements body, pass, skip, start, error and
line. Default value is “body error”. Levels are defined as:
body (b)
Display the body of failed tests
pass (p)
Print output when a test passes
skip (s)
Print output when a test is skipped
start (t)
Print output whenever a test starts
error (e)
Print errorInfo and errorCode, if they exist, when a test
return code does not match its expected return code
line (l)
Print source file line information of failed tests
The single letter abbreviations noted above are also recognized
so that “configure -verbose pt” is the same as “configure -ver‐
bose {pass start}”.
-preservecore level
Sets the core preservation level to level. This level deter‐
mines how stringent checks for core files are. Default value is
0. Levels are defined as:
0 No checking — do not check for core files at the end of
each test command, but do check for them in runAllTests
after all test files have been evaluated.
1 Also check for core files at the end of each test com‐
mand.
2 Check for core files at all times described above, and
save a copy of each core file produced in configure
-tmpdir.
-limitconstraints boolean
Sets the mode by which test honors constraints as described in
TESTS above. Default value is false.
-constraints list
Sets all the constraints in list to true. Also used in combina‐
tion with configure -limitconstraints true to control an alter‐
native constraint mode as described in TESTS above. Default
value is an empty list.
-tmpdir directory
Sets the temporary directory to be used by makeFile, makeDirec‐
tory, viewFile, removeFile, and removeDirectory as the default
directory where temporary files and directories created by test
files should be created. Default value is workingDirectory.
-testdir directory
Sets the directory searched by runAllTests for test files and
subdirectories. Default value is workingDirectory.
-file patternList
Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
test files to evaluate. Default value is “*.test”.
-notfile patternList
Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
test files to skip. Default value is “l.*.test”, so that any
SCCS lock files are skipped.
-relateddir patternList
Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
subdirectories to search for an all.tcl file. Default value is
“*”.
-asidefromdir patternList
Sets the list of patterns used by runAllTests to determine what
subdirectories to skip when searching for an all.tcl file.
Default value is an empty list.
-match patternList
Set the list of patterns used by test to determine whether a
test should be run. Default value is “*”.
-skip patternList
Set the list of patterns used by test to determine whether a
test should be skipped. Default value is an empty list.
-load script
Sets a script to be evaluated by loadTestedCommands. Default
value is an empty script.
-loadfile filename
Sets the filename from which to read a script to be evaluated by
loadTestedCommands. This is an alternative to -load. They can‐
not be used together.
-outfile filename
Sets the file to which all output produced by tcltest should be
written. A file named filename will be opened for writing, and
the resulting channel will be set as the value of outputChannel.
-errfile filename
Sets the file to which all error output produced by tcltest
should be written. A file named filename will be opened for
writing, and the resulting channel will be set as the value of
errorChannel.
CREATING TEST SUITES WITH TCLTEST
The fundamental element of a test suite is the individual test command.
We begin with several examples.
[1] Test of a script that returns normally.
test example-1.0 {normal return} {
format %s value
} value
[2] Test of a script that requires context setup and cleanup. Note
the bracing and indenting style that avoids any need for line
continuation.
test example-1.1 {test file existence} -setup {
set file [makeFile {} test]
} -body {
file exists $file
} -cleanup {
removeFile test
} -result 1
[3] Test of a script that raises an error.
test example-1.2 {error return} -body {
error message
} -returnCodes error -result message
[4] Test with a constraint.
test example-1.3 {user owns created files} -constraints {
unix
} -setup {
set file [makeFile {} test]
} -body {
file attributes $file -owner
} -cleanup {
removeFile test
} -result $::tcl_platform(user)
At the next higher layer of organization, several test commands are
gathered together into a single test file. Test files should have
names with the “.test” extension, because that is the default pattern
used by runAllTests to find test files. It is a good rule of thumb to
have one test file for each source code file of your project. It is
good practice to edit the test file and the source code file together,
keeping tests synchronized with code changes.
Most of the code in the test file should be the test commands. Use
constraints to skip tests, rather than conditional evaluation of test.
[5] Recommended system for writing conditional tests, using con‐
straints to guard:
testConstraint X [expr $myRequirement]
test goodConditionalTest {} X {
# body
} result
[6] Discouraged system for writing conditional tests, using if to
guard:
if $myRequirement {
test badConditionalTest {} {
#body
} result
}
Use the -setup and -cleanup options to establish and release all con‐
text requirements of the test body. Do not make tests depend on prior
tests in the file. Those prior tests might be skipped. If several
consecutive tests require the same context, the appropriate setup and
cleanup scripts may be stored in variable for passing to each tests
-setup and -cleanup options. This is a better solution than performing
setup outside of test commands, because the setup will only be done if
necessary, and any errors during setup will be reported, and not cause
the test file to abort.
A test file should be able to be combined with other test files and not
interfere with them, even when configure -singleproc 1 causes all files
to be evaluated in a common interpreter. A simple way to achieve this
is to have your tests define all their commands and variables in a
namespace that is deleted when the test file evaluation is complete. A
good namespace to use is a child namespace test of the namespace of the
module you are testing.
A test file should also be able to be evaluated directly as a script,
not depending on being called by a master runAllTests. This means that
each test file should process command line arguments to give the tester
all the configuration control that tcltest provides.
After all tests in a test file, the command cleanupTests should be
called.
[7] Here is a sketch of a sample test file illustrating those
points:
package require tcltest 2.2
eval ::tcltest::configure $argv
package require example
namespace eval ::example::test {
namespace import ::tcltest::*
testConstraint X [expr {...}]
variable SETUP {#common setup code}
variable CLEANUP {#common cleanup code}
test example-1 {} -setup $SETUP -body {
# First test
} -cleanup $CLEANUP -result {...}
test example-2 {} -constraints X -setup $SETUP -body {
# Second test; constrained
} -cleanup $CLEANUP -result {...}
test example-3 {} {
# Third test; no context required
} {...}
cleanupTests
}
namespace delete ::example::test
The next level of organization is a full test suite, made up of several
test files. One script is used to control the entire suite. The basic
function of this script is to call runAllTests after doing any neces‐
sary setup. This script is usually named all.tcl because that is the
default name used by runAllTests when combining multiple test suites
into one testing run.
[8] Here is a sketch of a sample test suite master script:
package require Tcl 8.4
package require tcltest 2.2
package require example
::tcltest::configure -testdir \
[file dirname [file normalize [info script]]]
eval ::tcltest::configure $argv
::tcltest::runAllTests
COMPATIBILITY
A number of commands and variables in the ::tcltest namespace provided
by earlier releases of tcltest have not been documented here. They are
no longer part of the supported public interface of tcltest and should
not be used in new test suites. However, to continue to support exist‐
ing test suites written to the older interface specifications, many of
those deprecated commands and variables still work as before. For
example, in many circumstances, configure will be automatically called
shortly after package require tcltest 2.1 succeeds with arguments from
the variable ::argv. This is to support test suites that depend on the
old behavior that tcltest was automatically configured from command
line arguments. New test files should not depend on this, but should
explicitly include
eval ::tcltest::configure $::argv
or
::tcltest::configure {*}$::argv
to establish a configuration from command line arguments.
KNOWN ISSUES
There are two known issues related to nested evaluations of test. The
first issue relates to the stack level in which test scripts are exe‐
cuted. Tests nested within other tests may be executed at the same
stack level as the outermost test. For example, in the following code:
test level-1.1 {level 1} {
-body {
test level-2.1 {level 2} {
}
}
}
any script executed in level-2.1 may be executed at the same stack
level as the script defined for level-1.1.
In addition, while two tests have been run, results will only be
reported by cleanupTests for tests at the same level as test level-1.1.
However, test results for all tests run prior to level-1.1 will be
available when test level-2.1 runs. What this means is that if you try
to access the test results for test level-2.1, it will may say that “m”
tests have run, “n” tests have been skipped, “o” tests have passed and
“p” tests have failed, where “m”, “n”, “o”, and “p” refer to tests that
were run at the same test level as test level-1.1.
Implementation of output and error comparison in the test command
depends on usage of puts in your application code. Output is inter‐
cepted by redefining the global puts command while the defined test
script is being run. Errors thrown by C procedures or printed directly
from C applications will not be caught by the test command. Therefore,
usage of the -output and -errorOutput options to test is useful only
for pure Tcl applications that use puts to produce output.
KEYWORDS
test, test harness, test suite
tcltest 2.3 tcltest(n)
