4 This directory holds many test scripts for core GIT tools. The
5 first part of this short document describes how to run the tests
8 When fixing the tools or adding enhancements, you are strongly
9 encouraged to add tests in this directory to cover what you are
10 trying to fix or enhance. The later part of this short document
11 describes how your test scripts should be organized.
17 The easiest way to run tests is to say "make". This runs all
20 *** t0000-basic.sh ***
21 ok 1 - .git/objects should be empty after git init in an empty repo.
22 ok 2 - .git/objects should have 3 subdirectories.
23 ok 3 - success is reported like this
25 ok 43 - very long name in the index handled sanely
26 # fixed 1 known breakage(s)
27 # still have 1 known breakage(s)
28 # passed all remaining 42 test(s)
32 ok 2 - plain with GIT_WORK_TREE
35 Since the tests all output TAP (see http://testanything.org) they can
36 be run with any TAP harness. Here's an example of parallel testing
37 powered by a recent version of prove(1):
39 $ prove --timer --jobs 15 ./t[0-9]*.sh
40 [19:17:33] ./t0005-signals.sh ................................... ok 36 ms
41 [19:17:33] ./t0022-crlf-rename.sh ............................... ok 69 ms
42 [19:17:33] ./t0024-crlf-archive.sh .............................. ok 154 ms
43 [19:17:33] ./t0004-unwritable.sh ................................ ok 289 ms
44 [19:17:33] ./t0002-gitfile.sh ................................... ok 480 ms
45 ===( 102;0 25/? 6/? 5/? 16/? 1/? 4/? 2/? 1/? 3/? 1... )===
47 prove and other harnesses come with a lot of useful options. The
48 --state option in particular is very useful:
50 # Repeat until no more failures
51 $ prove -j 15 --state=failed,save ./t[0-9]*.sh
53 You can give DEFAULT_TEST_TARGET=prove on the make command (or define it
54 in config.mak) to cause "make test" to run tests under prove.
55 GIT_PROVE_OPTS can be used to pass additional options, e.g.
57 $ make DEFAULT_TEST_TARGET=prove GIT_PROVE_OPTS='--timer --jobs 16' test
59 You can also run each test individually from command line, like this:
61 $ sh ./t3010-ls-files-killed-modified.sh
62 ok 1 - git update-index --add to add various paths.
63 ok 2 - git ls-files -k to show killed files.
64 ok 3 - validate git ls-files -k output.
65 ok 4 - git ls-files -m to show modified files.
66 ok 5 - validate git ls-files -m output.
67 # passed all 5 test(s)
70 You can pass --verbose (or -v), --debug (or -d), and --immediate
71 (or -i) command line argument to the test, or by setting GIT_TEST_OPTS
72 appropriately before running "make".
76 This makes the test more verbose. Specifically, the
77 command being run and their output if any are also
80 --verbose-only=<pattern>::
81 Like --verbose, but the effect is limited to tests with
82 numbers matching <pattern>. The number matched against is
83 simply the running count of the test within the file.
87 This may help the person who is developing a new test.
88 It causes the command defined with test_debug to run.
89 The "trash" directory (used to store all temporary data
90 during testing) is not deleted even if there are no
91 failed tests so that you can inspect its contents after
96 This causes the test to immediately exit upon the first
97 failed test. Cleanup commands requested with
98 test_when_finished are not executed if the test failed,
99 in order to keep the state for inspection by the tester
104 This causes additional long-running tests to be run (where
105 available), for more exhaustive testing.
108 --run=<test-selector>::
109 Run only the subset of tests indicated by
110 <test-selector>. See section "Skipping Tests" below for
111 <test-selector> syntax.
114 Execute all Git binaries under valgrind tool <tool> and exit
115 with status 126 on errors (just like regular tests, this will
116 only stop the test script when running under -i).
118 Since it makes no sense to run the tests with --valgrind and
119 not see any output, this option implies --verbose. For
120 convenience, it also implies --tee.
122 <tool> defaults to 'memcheck', just like valgrind itself.
123 Other particularly useful choices include 'helgrind' and
124 'drd', but you may use any tool recognized by your valgrind
127 As a special case, <tool> can be 'memcheck-fast', which uses
128 memcheck but disables --track-origins. Use this if you are
129 running tests in bulk, to see if there are _any_ memory
132 Note that memcheck is run with the option --leak-check=no,
133 as the git process is short-lived and some errors are not
134 interesting. In order to run a single command under the same
135 conditions manually, you should set GIT_VALGRIND to point to
136 the 't/valgrind/' directory and use the commands under
139 --valgrind-only=<pattern>::
140 Like --valgrind, but the effect is limited to tests with
141 numbers matching <pattern>. The number matched against is
142 simply the running count of the test within the file.
145 In addition to printing the test output to the terminal,
146 write it to files named 't/test-results/$TEST_NAME.out'.
147 As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
148 run the tests with this option in parallel.
151 By default tests are run without dashed forms of
152 commands (like git-commit) in the PATH (it only uses
153 wrappers from ../bin-wrappers). Use this option to include
154 the build directory (..) in the PATH, which contains all
155 the dashed forms of commands. This option is currently
156 implied by other options like --valgrind and
160 Create "trash" directories used to store all temporary data during
161 testing under <directory>, instead of the t/ directory.
162 Using this option with a RAM-based filesystem (such as tmpfs)
163 can massively speed up the test suite.
165 You can also set the GIT_TEST_INSTALLED environment variable to
166 the bindir of an existing git installation to test that installation.
167 You still need to have built this git sandbox, from which various
168 test-* support programs, templates, and perl libraries are used.
169 If your installed git is incomplete, it will silently test parts of
170 your built version instead.
172 When using GIT_TEST_INSTALLED, you can also set GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH to
173 override the location of the dashed-form subcommands (what
174 GIT_EXEC_PATH would be used for during normal operation).
175 GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH defaults to `$GIT_TEST_INSTALLED/git --exec-path`.
181 In some environments, certain tests have no way of succeeding
182 due to platform limitation, such as lack of 'unzip' program, or
183 filesystem that do not allow arbitrary sequence of non-NUL bytes
186 You should be able to say something like
188 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS=t9200.8 sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh
192 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS='t[0-4]??? t91?? t9200.8' make
194 to omit such tests. The value of the environment variable is a
195 SP separated list of patterns that tells which tests to skip,
196 and either can match the "t[0-9]{4}" part to skip the whole
197 test, or t[0-9]{4} followed by ".$number" to say which
198 particular test to skip.
200 For an individual test suite --run could be used to specify that
201 only some tests should be run or that some tests should be
204 The argument for --run is a list of individual test numbers or
205 ranges with an optional negation prefix that define what tests in
206 a test suite to include in the run. A range is two numbers
207 separated with a dash and matches a range of tests with both ends
208 been included. You may omit the first or the second number to
209 mean "from the first test" or "up to the very last test"
212 Optional prefix of '!' means that the test or a range of tests
213 should be excluded from the run.
215 If --run starts with an unprefixed number or range the initial
216 set of tests to run is empty. If the first item starts with '!'
217 all the tests are added to the initial set. After initial set is
218 determined every test number or range is added or excluded from
219 the set one by one, from left to right.
221 Individual numbers or ranges could be separated either by a space
224 For example, to run only tests up to a specific test (21), one
227 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-21'
231 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-21'
233 Common case is to run several setup tests (1, 2, 3) and then a
234 specific test (21) that relies on that setup:
236 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1 2 3 21'
240 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run=1,2,3,21
244 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-3 21'
246 As noted above, the test set is built going though items left to
249 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-4 !3'
251 will run tests 1, 2, and 4. Items that comes later have higher
252 precendence. It means that this:
254 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!3 1-4'
256 would just run tests from 1 to 4, including 3.
258 You may use negation with ranges. The following will run all
259 test in the test suite except from 7 up to 11:
261 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!7-11'
263 Some tests in a test suite rely on the previous tests performing
264 certain actions, specifically some tests are designated as
265 "setup" test, so you cannot _arbitrarily_ disable one test and
266 expect the rest to function correctly.
268 --run is mostly useful when you want to focus on a specific test
269 and know what setup is needed for it. Or when you want to run
270 everything up to a certain test.
276 The test files are named as:
278 tNNNN-commandname-details.sh
280 where N is a decimal digit.
282 First digit tells the family:
284 0 - the absolute basics and global stuff
285 1 - the basic commands concerning database
286 2 - the basic commands concerning the working tree
287 3 - the other basic commands (e.g. ls-files)
288 4 - the diff commands
289 5 - the pull and exporting commands
290 6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
291 7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
292 8 - the porcelainish commands concerning forensics
295 Second digit tells the particular command we are testing.
297 Third digit (optionally) tells the particular switch or group of switches
300 If you create files under t/ directory (i.e. here) that is not
301 the top-level test script, never name the file to match the above
302 pattern. The Makefile here considers all such files as the
303 top-level test script and tries to run all of them. Care is
304 especially needed if you are creating a common test library
305 file, similar to test-lib.sh, because such a library file may
306 not be suitable for standalone execution.
312 The test script is written as a shell script. It should start
313 with the standard "#!/bin/sh" with copyright notices, and an
314 assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
318 # Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
321 test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
323 This test registers the following structure in the cache
324 and tries to run git-ls-files with option --frotz.'
330 After assigning test_description, the test script should source
331 test-lib.sh like this:
335 This test harness library does the following things:
337 - If the script is invoked with command line argument --help
338 (or -h), it shows the test_description and exits.
340 - Creates an empty test directory with an empty .git/objects database
341 and chdir(2) into it. This directory is 't/trash
342 directory.$test_name_without_dotsh', with t/ subject to change by
343 the --root option documented above.
345 - Defines standard test helper functions for your scripts to
346 use. These functions are designed to make all scripts behave
347 consistently when command line arguments --verbose (or -v),
348 --debug (or -d), and --immediate (or -i) is given.
350 Do's, don'ts & things to keep in mind
351 -------------------------------------
353 Here are a few examples of things you probably should and shouldn't do
358 - Put all code inside test_expect_success and other assertions.
360 Even code that isn't a test per se, but merely some setup code
361 should be inside a test assertion.
363 - Chain your test assertions
365 Write test code like this:
377 That way all of the commands in your tests will succeed or fail. If
378 you must ignore the return value of something, consider using a
379 helper function (e.g. use sane_unset instead of unset, in order
380 to avoid unportable return value for unsetting a variable that was
381 already unset), or prepending the command with test_might_fail or
384 - Check the test coverage for your tests. See the "Test coverage"
387 Don't blindly follow test coverage metrics; if a new function you added
388 doesn't have any coverage, then you're probably doing something wrong,
389 but having 100% coverage doesn't necessarily mean that you tested
392 Tests that are likely to smoke out future regressions are better
393 than tests that just inflate the coverage metrics.
395 - When a test checks for an absolute path that a git command generated,
396 construct the expected value using $(pwd) rather than $PWD,
397 $TEST_DIRECTORY, or $TRASH_DIRECTORY. It makes a difference on
398 Windows, where the shell (MSYS bash) mangles absolute path names.
399 For details, see the commit message of 4114156ae9.
403 - exit() within a <script> part.
405 The harness will catch this as a programming error of the test.
406 Use test_done instead if you need to stop the tests early (see
407 "Skipping tests" below).
409 - use '! git cmd' when you want to make sure the git command exits
410 with failure in a controlled way by calling "die()". Instead,
411 use 'test_must_fail git cmd'. This will signal a failure if git
412 dies in an unexpected way (e.g. segfault).
414 On the other hand, don't use test_must_fail for running regular
415 platform commands; just use '! cmd'.
417 - use perl without spelling it as "$PERL_PATH". This is to help our
418 friends on Windows where the platform Perl often adds CR before
419 the end of line, and they bundle Git with a version of Perl that
420 does not do so, whose path is specified with $PERL_PATH. Note that we
421 provide a "perl" function which uses $PERL_PATH under the hood, so
422 you do not need to worry when simply running perl in the test scripts
423 (but you do, for example, on a shebang line or in a sub script
424 created via "write_script").
426 - use sh without spelling it as "$SHELL_PATH", when the script can
427 be misinterpreted by broken platform shell (e.g. Solaris).
429 - chdir around in tests. It is not sufficient to chdir to
430 somewhere and then chdir back to the original location later in
431 the test, as any intermediate step can fail and abort the test,
432 causing the next test to start in an unexpected directory. Do so
433 inside a subshell if necessary.
435 - Break the TAP output
437 The raw output from your test may be interpreted by a TAP harness. TAP
438 harnesses will ignore everything they don't know about, but don't step
439 on their toes in these areas:
441 - Don't print lines like "$x..$y" where $x and $y are integers.
443 - Don't print lines that begin with "ok" or "not ok".
445 TAP harnesses expect a line that begins with either "ok" and "not
446 ok" to signal a test passed or failed (and our harness already
447 produces such lines), so your script shouldn't emit such lines to
450 You can glean some further possible issues from the TAP grammar
451 (see http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TAP::Parser::Grammar#TAP_Grammar)
452 but the best indication is to just run the tests with prove(1),
453 it'll complain if anything is amiss.
457 - Inside <script> part, the standard output and standard error
458 streams are discarded, and the test harness only reports "ok" or
459 "not ok" to the end user running the tests. Under --verbose, they
460 are shown to help debugging the tests.
466 If you need to skip tests you should do so by using the three-arg form
467 of the test_* functions (see the "Test harness library" section
470 test_expect_success PERL 'I need Perl' '
471 perl -e "hlagh() if unf_unf()"
474 The advantage of skipping tests like this is that platforms that don't
475 have the PERL and other optional dependencies get an indication of how
476 many tests they're missing.
478 If the test code is too hairy for that (i.e. does a lot of setup work
479 outside test assertions) you can also skip all remaining tests by
480 setting skip_all and immediately call test_done:
482 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
484 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
488 The string you give to skip_all will be used as an explanation for why
489 the test was skipped.
494 Your script will be a sequence of tests, using helper functions
495 from the test harness library. At the end of the script, call
502 There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
503 library for your script to use.
505 - test_expect_success [<prereq>] <message> <script>
507 Usually takes two strings as parameters, and evaluates the
508 <script>. If it yields success, test is considered
509 successful. <message> should state what it is testing.
513 test_expect_success \
514 'git-write-tree should be able to write an empty tree.' \
515 'tree=$(git-write-tree)'
517 If you supply three parameters the first will be taken to be a
518 prerequisite; see the test_set_prereq and test_have_prereq
521 test_expect_success TTY 'git --paginate rev-list uses a pager' \
524 You can also supply a comma-separated list of prerequisites, in the
525 rare case where your test depends on more than one:
527 test_expect_success PERL,PYTHON 'yo dawg' \
528 ' test $(perl -E 'print eval "1 +" . qx[python -c "print 2"]') == "4" '
530 - test_expect_failure [<prereq>] <message> <script>
532 This is NOT the opposite of test_expect_success, but is used
533 to mark a test that demonstrates a known breakage. Unlike
534 the usual test_expect_success tests, which say "ok" on
535 success and "FAIL" on failure, this will say "FIXED" on
536 success and "still broken" on failure. Failures from these
537 tests won't cause -i (immediate) to stop.
539 Like test_expect_success this function can optionally use a three
540 argument invocation with a prerequisite as the first argument.
542 - test_debug <script>
544 This takes a single argument, <script>, and evaluates it only
545 when the test script is started with --debug command line
546 argument. This is primarily meant for use during the
547 development of a new test script.
551 Your test script must have test_done at the end. Its purpose
552 is to summarize successes and failures in the test script and
553 exit with an appropriate error code.
557 Make commit and tag names consistent by setting the author and
558 committer times to defined state. Subsequent calls will
559 advance the times by a fixed amount.
561 - test_commit <message> [<filename> [<contents>]]
563 Creates a commit with the given message, committing the given
564 file with the given contents (default for both is to reuse the
565 message string), and adds a tag (again reusing the message
566 string as name). Calls test_tick to make the SHA-1s
569 - test_merge <message> <commit-or-tag>
571 Merges the given rev using the given message. Like test_commit,
572 creates a tag and calls test_tick before committing.
574 - test_set_prereq <prereq>
576 Set a test prerequisite to be used later with test_have_prereq. The
577 test-lib will set some prerequisites for you, see the
578 "Prerequisites" section below for a full list of these.
580 Others you can set yourself and use later with either
581 test_have_prereq directly, or the three argument invocation of
582 test_expect_success and test_expect_failure.
584 - test_have_prereq <prereq>
586 Check if we have a prerequisite previously set with
587 test_set_prereq. The most common use of this directly is to skip
588 all the tests if we don't have some essential prerequisite:
590 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
592 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
596 - test_external [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
598 Execute a <script> with an <external> interpreter (like perl). This
599 was added for tests like t9700-perl-git.sh which do most of their
600 work in an external test script.
603 'GitwebCache::*FileCache*' \
604 perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9503/test_cache_interface.pl
606 If the test is outputting its own TAP you should set the
607 test_external_has_tap variable somewhere before calling the first
608 test_external* function. See t9700-perl-git.sh for an example.
610 # The external test will outputs its own plan
611 test_external_has_tap=1
613 - test_external_without_stderr [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
615 Like test_external but fail if there's any output on stderr,
616 instead of checking the exit code.
618 test_external_without_stderr \
620 perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9700/test.pl
622 - test_expect_code <exit-code> <command>
624 Run a command and ensure that it exits with the given exit code.
627 test_expect_success 'Merge with d/f conflicts' '
628 test_expect_code 1 git merge "merge msg" B master
631 - test_must_fail <git-command>
633 Run a git command and ensure it fails in a controlled way. Use
634 this instead of "! <git-command>". When git-command dies due to a
635 segfault, test_must_fail diagnoses it as an error; "! <git-command>"
636 treats it as just another expected failure, which would let such a
639 - test_might_fail <git-command>
641 Similar to test_must_fail, but tolerate success, too. Use this
642 instead of "<git-command> || :" to catch failures due to segv.
644 - test_cmp <expected> <actual>
646 Check whether the content of the <actual> file matches the
647 <expected> file. This behaves like "cmp" but produces more
648 helpful output when the test is run with "-v" option.
650 - test_line_count (= | -lt | -ge | ...) <length> <file>
652 Check whether a file has the length it is expected to.
654 - test_path_is_file <path> [<diagnosis>]
655 test_path_is_dir <path> [<diagnosis>]
656 test_path_is_missing <path> [<diagnosis>]
658 Check if the named path is a file, if the named path is a
659 directory, or if the named path does not exist, respectively,
660 and fail otherwise, showing the <diagnosis> text.
662 - test_when_finished <script>
664 Prepend <script> to a list of commands to run to clean up
665 at the end of the current test. If some clean-up command
666 fails, the test will not pass.
670 test_expect_success 'branch pointing to non-commit' '
671 git rev-parse HEAD^{tree} >.git/refs/heads/invalid &&
672 test_when_finished "git update-ref -d refs/heads/invalid" &&
676 - test_write_lines <lines>
678 Write <lines> on standard output, one line per argument.
679 Useful to prepare multi-line files in a compact form.
683 test_write_lines a b c d e f g >foo
685 Is a more compact equivalent of:
699 This command is useful for writing and debugging tests and must be
700 removed before submitting. It halts the execution of the test and
701 spawns a shell in the trash directory. Exit the shell to continue
704 test_expect_success 'test' '
705 git do-something >actual &&
707 test_cmp expected actual
710 - test_ln_s_add <path1> <path2>
712 This function helps systems whose filesystem does not support symbolic
713 links. Use it to add a symbolic link entry to the index when it is not
714 important that the file system entry is a symbolic link, i.e., instead
720 Sometimes it is possible to split a test in a part that does not need
721 the symbolic link in the file system and a part that does; then only
722 the latter part need be protected by a SYMLINKS prerequisite (see below).
727 These are the prerequisites that the test library predefines with
730 See the prereq argument to the test_* functions in the "Test harness
731 library" section above and the "test_have_prereq" function for how to
732 use these, and "test_set_prereq" for how to define your own.
736 Git wasn't compiled with NO_PYTHON=YesPlease. Wrap any tests that
737 need Python with this.
741 Git wasn't compiled with NO_PERL=YesPlease.
743 Even without the PERL prerequisite, tests can assume there is a
744 usable perl interpreter at $PERL_PATH, though it need not be
749 The filesystem supports POSIX style permission bits.
753 Backslashes in pathspec are not directory separators. This is not
754 set on Windows. See 6fd1106a for details.
758 The process retains the same pid across exec(2). See fb9a2bea for
763 The filesystem we're on supports creation of FIFOs (named pipes)
768 The filesystem we're on supports symbolic links. E.g. a FAT
769 filesystem doesn't support these. See 704a3143 for details.
773 Test is not run by root user, and an attempt to write to an
774 unwritable file is expected to fail correctly.
778 Git was compiled with USE_LIBPCRE=YesPlease. Wrap any tests
779 that use git-grep --perl-regexp or git-grep -P in these.
781 - CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS
783 Test is run on a case insensitive file system.
787 Test is run on a filesystem which converts decomposed utf-8 (nfd)
788 to precomposed utf-8 (nfc).
790 Tips for Writing Tests
791 ----------------------
793 As with any programming projects, existing programs are the best
794 source of the information. However, do _not_ emulate
795 t0000-basic.sh when writing your tests. The test is special in
796 that it tries to validate the very core of GIT. For example, it
797 knows that there will be 256 subdirectories under .git/objects/,
798 and it knows that the object ID of an empty tree is a certain
799 40-byte string. This is deliberately done so in t0000-basic.sh
800 because the things the very basic core test tries to achieve is
801 to serve as a basis for people who are changing the GIT internal
802 drastically. For these people, after making certain changes,
803 not seeing failures from the basic test _is_ a failure. And
804 such drastic changes to the core GIT that even changes these
805 otherwise supposedly stable object IDs should be accompanied by
806 an update to t0000-basic.sh.
808 However, other tests that simply rely on basic parts of the core
809 GIT working properly should not have that level of intimate
810 knowledge of the core GIT internals. If all the test scripts
811 hardcoded the object IDs like t0000-basic.sh does, that defeats
812 the purpose of t0000-basic.sh, which is to isolate that level of
813 validation in one place. Your test also ends up needing
814 updating when such a change to the internal happens, so do _not_
815 do it and leave the low level of validation to t0000-basic.sh.
820 You can use the coverage tests to find code paths that are not being
821 used or properly exercised yet.
823 To do that, run the coverage target at the top-level (not in the t/
828 That'll compile Git with GCC's coverage arguments, and generate a test
829 report with gcov after the tests finish. Running the coverage tests
830 can take a while, since running the tests in parallel is incompatible
831 with GCC's coverage mode.
833 After the tests have run you can generate a list of untested
836 make coverage-untested-functions
838 You can also generate a detailed per-file HTML report using the
839 Devel::Cover module. To install it do:
841 # On Debian or Ubuntu:
842 sudo aptitude install libdevel-cover-perl
844 # From the CPAN with cpanminus
845 curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo --self-upgrade
846 cpanm --sudo Devel::Cover
848 Then, at the top-level:
852 That'll generate a detailed cover report in the "cover_db_html"
853 directory, which you can then copy to a webserver, or inspect locally