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Re: [Tcllib-devel] Writing tests - how?
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From: Andreas K. <and...@ac...> - 2008-06-17 17:15:00
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> What is currently available /may/ of course be interpreted as "well,
> just copy and modify pop3.test". I suppose this will work (many have
> probably done that) but already the first commmand
> source [file join \
> [file dirname [file dirname [file join [pwd] [info script]]]] \
> devtools testutilities.tcl]
> there is enough to make me shun away. Surely there should be a better
> way to do this?
As far as I know, no. This is the standard command to load the common
support code for testsuites in Tcllib. It uses the location of the .test
file to compute the location of the support code and the sourcing it. We
cannot avoid its replication across all testsuites. Stuffing it into a
procedure in the support code will not work, because then you will need the
support code itself to make the support code available. And I do not have
any other ideas. If you have some feel free to tell me.
> Apologies if this has been discussed before
AFAIK no.
>(at least I'm certain I've
> been bothered by this before), but a search on the SF mail archives did
> not find anything within the last year and a half or so.
> Basic problem: The tcllib README states
>
> * the module should have both documentation ([*]) and a test suite
> (in the form of a group of *.test files in the module directory).
> * the module must have either documentation or a test suite. It can
> not have neither.
>
> and README.developer continues
>
> * If available the testsuite(s) should use 'tcltest' and the
> general format as used by the other modules in Tcllib
> (declaration of minimally needed Tcl, tcltest, supporting
> packages, etc.). The file(s) should have the extension
> '.test' for SAK to recognize them.
>
> but what does this mean concretely? I'd interpret it as saying that
> e.g. foo.tcl should come with foo.test, where the latter looks like:
>
>
> package require Tcl 8.4 ; # Declaration of minimally needed Tcl
> package require tcltest 2 ; # Ditto tcltest
> package require bar 1.3.2 ; # Supporting package
Actually:
[std command to load testutilities.tcl]
testsNeedTcl 8.4
testsNeedTcltest 2
Is the supporting package bar in Tcllib ? If not
package require bar 1.3.2
otherwise
support {
use bar/bar.tcl bar ;# Assuming that 'bar' is in directory bar under
'modules'.
}
> # Now follows the test(s). (Currently, there is only one.)
> tcltest::test foo-1.1 "Testing foo" -body {
> foo
> } -result "baz"
>
>
> but I rather doubt this would work; for one, the foo package itself
> doesn't seem to be loaded. Is that perhaps the "etc." in
> README.developer ;-),
The file README.developer is incomplete, yes.
testing {
use foo.tcl foo
}
> or is there rather some automagic [source]ry
> going on?
No.
> More information seems to be required. (Yes, I will find out
> below that the above probably doesn't refer to [package require] at
> all, but rather to [testsNeedTcl] and friends.)
> A tcllib contributor might of course at this point choose to just
> duplicate whatever is done in existing .test files in tcllib, but
> doing-without-understanding is not a strategy I'm comfortable with.
Understandable.
> Besides, when I /have/ picked modules at random and looked at their
> .test files, I haven't come across anything that looked like a
> boilerplate test file.
The basic boilerplate is what I have inlined above. Differences come for
packages which have accelerators. Their tests can use the TestAccel
commands, if their accelerator management follows specific lines. Not all do
IIRC, yet.
> So, I took a look around the CVS archive, in hunt for better
> documentation. There is for example a devdoc directory
> (http://tcllib.cvs.sourceforge.net/tcllib/tcllib/devdoc/) -- maybe this
> contains more information on the matter? Sadly, it doesn't. Also, most
> of the information therein seems to be rather old (even if some files
> were modified 9 months ago).
IIRC they are outdated as well.
> What else is there?
>
> There is also a support/devel directory, which contains all.tcl and sak
> -- since this is the software canonically running the tests, maybe
> this is where one might find some documentation on the matter? Sadly,
> no.
Running the tests doesn't really have to care about the boilerplate setup
and such as long as the test cases themselves are written with 'tcltest',
essentially.
> There are several help.txt files, but those only contain
> interactive help messages from the sak application, so the only actual
> documentation I can find therein is for the embedded pregistry package.
> Nothing to help with test files...
>
> The mail achive search did however turn up a mention of
> devtools/testutilities -- where might this be found? As it turns out,
> devtools is a *module* in the CVS repository
> (http://tcllib.cvs.sourceforge.net/tcllib/tcllib/modules/devtools/),
> although it doesn't get installed as a module (only natural, as it has
> neither documentation nor test suite; this is beginning to feel like a
> pattern).
> A lot of what is in devtools/ looks very interesting:
>
> * testutilities.tcl:[useLocalFile] to make sure I'm testing the
> version of my package matching the test rather than some random older
> version I happen to have installed.
> * coserv.tcl (for later, testing an IPC package I'm working on)
>
> but then there's the matter of missing documentation, and questions it
> should have answered:
>
> * Should one use [useLocalFile], [useTcllibFile], [useLocal], or
> what? When and why?
Yes, all the time.
> * How are these commands supposed to be made available? When can one
> rely on them?
See the first paragraph, I moved this to the top.
Yes, we have big hole in our developer support there.
I will try to come up with documentation and use you as the guinea pig to
test it on.
Of course, if someone else is willing to write such docs after picking my
brain (= firing questions at me and mangling the answers into a coherent
whole) I will gladly welcome that.
--
Andreas Kupries <and...@Ac...>
Developer @ http://www.ActiveState.com
Tel: +1 778-786-1122
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