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.
86 Turn on shell tracing (i.e., `set -x`) during the tests
87 themselves. Implies `--verbose`. Note that this can cause
88 failures in some tests which redirect and test the
89 output of shell functions. Use with caution.
93 This may help the person who is developing a new test.
94 It causes the command defined with test_debug to run.
95 The "trash" directory (used to store all temporary data
96 during testing) is not deleted even if there are no
97 failed tests so that you can inspect its contents after
102 This causes the test to immediately exit upon the first
103 failed test. Cleanup commands requested with
104 test_when_finished are not executed if the test failed,
105 in order to keep the state for inspection by the tester
110 This causes additional long-running tests to be run (where
111 available), for more exhaustive testing.
114 --run=<test-selector>::
115 Run only the subset of tests indicated by
116 <test-selector>. See section "Skipping Tests" below for
117 <test-selector> syntax.
120 Execute all Git binaries under valgrind tool <tool> and exit
121 with status 126 on errors (just like regular tests, this will
122 only stop the test script when running under -i).
124 Since it makes no sense to run the tests with --valgrind and
125 not see any output, this option implies --verbose. For
126 convenience, it also implies --tee.
128 <tool> defaults to 'memcheck', just like valgrind itself.
129 Other particularly useful choices include 'helgrind' and
130 'drd', but you may use any tool recognized by your valgrind
133 As a special case, <tool> can be 'memcheck-fast', which uses
134 memcheck but disables --track-origins. Use this if you are
135 running tests in bulk, to see if there are _any_ memory
138 Note that memcheck is run with the option --leak-check=no,
139 as the git process is short-lived and some errors are not
140 interesting. In order to run a single command under the same
141 conditions manually, you should set GIT_VALGRIND to point to
142 the 't/valgrind/' directory and use the commands under
145 --valgrind-only=<pattern>::
146 Like --valgrind, but the effect is limited to tests with
147 numbers matching <pattern>. The number matched against is
148 simply the running count of the test within the file.
151 In addition to printing the test output to the terminal,
152 write it to files named 't/test-results/$TEST_NAME.out'.
153 As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
154 run the tests with this option in parallel.
157 By default tests are run without dashed forms of
158 commands (like git-commit) in the PATH (it only uses
159 wrappers from ../bin-wrappers). Use this option to include
160 the build directory (..) in the PATH, which contains all
161 the dashed forms of commands. This option is currently
162 implied by other options like --valgrind and
166 Create "trash" directories used to store all temporary data during
167 testing under <directory>, instead of the t/ directory.
168 Using this option with a RAM-based filesystem (such as tmpfs)
169 can massively speed up the test suite.
171 You can also set the GIT_TEST_INSTALLED environment variable to
172 the bindir of an existing git installation to test that installation.
173 You still need to have built this git sandbox, from which various
174 test-* support programs, templates, and perl libraries are used.
175 If your installed git is incomplete, it will silently test parts of
176 your built version instead.
178 When using GIT_TEST_INSTALLED, you can also set GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH to
179 override the location of the dashed-form subcommands (what
180 GIT_EXEC_PATH would be used for during normal operation).
181 GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH defaults to `$GIT_TEST_INSTALLED/git --exec-path`.
187 In some environments, certain tests have no way of succeeding
188 due to platform limitation, such as lack of 'unzip' program, or
189 filesystem that do not allow arbitrary sequence of non-NUL bytes
192 You should be able to say something like
194 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS=t9200.8 sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh
198 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS='t[0-4]??? t91?? t9200.8' make
200 to omit such tests. The value of the environment variable is a
201 SP separated list of patterns that tells which tests to skip,
202 and either can match the "t[0-9]{4}" part to skip the whole
203 test, or t[0-9]{4} followed by ".$number" to say which
204 particular test to skip.
206 For an individual test suite --run could be used to specify that
207 only some tests should be run or that some tests should be
210 The argument for --run is a list of individual test numbers or
211 ranges with an optional negation prefix that define what tests in
212 a test suite to include in the run. A range is two numbers
213 separated with a dash and matches a range of tests with both ends
214 been included. You may omit the first or the second number to
215 mean "from the first test" or "up to the very last test"
218 Optional prefix of '!' means that the test or a range of tests
219 should be excluded from the run.
221 If --run starts with an unprefixed number or range the initial
222 set of tests to run is empty. If the first item starts with '!'
223 all the tests are added to the initial set. After initial set is
224 determined every test number or range is added or excluded from
225 the set one by one, from left to right.
227 Individual numbers or ranges could be separated either by a space
230 For example, to run only tests up to a specific test (21), one
233 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-21'
237 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-21'
239 Common case is to run several setup tests (1, 2, 3) and then a
240 specific test (21) that relies on that setup:
242 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1 2 3 21'
246 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run=1,2,3,21
250 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-3 21'
252 As noted above, the test set is built going though items left to
255 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-4 !3'
257 will run tests 1, 2, and 4. Items that comes later have higher
258 precendence. It means that this:
260 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!3 1-4'
262 would just run tests from 1 to 4, including 3.
264 You may use negation with ranges. The following will run all
265 test in the test suite except from 7 up to 11:
267 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!7-11'
269 Some tests in a test suite rely on the previous tests performing
270 certain actions, specifically some tests are designated as
271 "setup" test, so you cannot _arbitrarily_ disable one test and
272 expect the rest to function correctly.
274 --run is mostly useful when you want to focus on a specific test
275 and know what setup is needed for it. Or when you want to run
276 everything up to a certain test.
282 The test files are named as:
284 tNNNN-commandname-details.sh
286 where N is a decimal digit.
288 First digit tells the family:
290 0 - the absolute basics and global stuff
291 1 - the basic commands concerning database
292 2 - the basic commands concerning the working tree
293 3 - the other basic commands (e.g. ls-files)
294 4 - the diff commands
295 5 - the pull and exporting commands
296 6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
297 7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
298 8 - the porcelainish commands concerning forensics
301 Second digit tells the particular command we are testing.
303 Third digit (optionally) tells the particular switch or group of switches
306 If you create files under t/ directory (i.e. here) that is not
307 the top-level test script, never name the file to match the above
308 pattern. The Makefile here considers all such files as the
309 top-level test script and tries to run all of them. Care is
310 especially needed if you are creating a common test library
311 file, similar to test-lib.sh, because such a library file may
312 not be suitable for standalone execution.
318 The test script is written as a shell script. It should start
319 with the standard "#!/bin/sh" with copyright notices, and an
320 assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
324 # Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
327 test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
329 This test registers the following structure in the cache
330 and tries to run git-ls-files with option --frotz.'
336 After assigning test_description, the test script should source
337 test-lib.sh like this:
341 This test harness library does the following things:
343 - If the script is invoked with command line argument --help
344 (or -h), it shows the test_description and exits.
346 - Creates an empty test directory with an empty .git/objects database
347 and chdir(2) into it. This directory is 't/trash
348 directory.$test_name_without_dotsh', with t/ subject to change by
349 the --root option documented above.
351 - Defines standard test helper functions for your scripts to
352 use. These functions are designed to make all scripts behave
353 consistently when command line arguments --verbose (or -v),
354 --debug (or -d), and --immediate (or -i) is given.
356 Do's, don'ts & things to keep in mind
357 -------------------------------------
359 Here are a few examples of things you probably should and shouldn't do
364 - Put all code inside test_expect_success and other assertions.
366 Even code that isn't a test per se, but merely some setup code
367 should be inside a test assertion.
369 - Chain your test assertions
371 Write test code like this:
383 That way all of the commands in your tests will succeed or fail. If
384 you must ignore the return value of something, consider using a
385 helper function (e.g. use sane_unset instead of unset, in order
386 to avoid unportable return value for unsetting a variable that was
387 already unset), or prepending the command with test_might_fail or
390 - Check the test coverage for your tests. See the "Test coverage"
393 Don't blindly follow test coverage metrics; if a new function you added
394 doesn't have any coverage, then you're probably doing something wrong,
395 but having 100% coverage doesn't necessarily mean that you tested
398 Tests that are likely to smoke out future regressions are better
399 than tests that just inflate the coverage metrics.
401 - When a test checks for an absolute path that a git command generated,
402 construct the expected value using $(pwd) rather than $PWD,
403 $TEST_DIRECTORY, or $TRASH_DIRECTORY. It makes a difference on
404 Windows, where the shell (MSYS bash) mangles absolute path names.
405 For details, see the commit message of 4114156ae9.
409 - exit() within a <script> part.
411 The harness will catch this as a programming error of the test.
412 Use test_done instead if you need to stop the tests early (see
413 "Skipping tests" below).
415 - use '! git cmd' when you want to make sure the git command exits
416 with failure in a controlled way by calling "die()". Instead,
417 use 'test_must_fail git cmd'. This will signal a failure if git
418 dies in an unexpected way (e.g. segfault).
420 On the other hand, don't use test_must_fail for running regular
421 platform commands; just use '! cmd'. We are not in the business
422 of verifying that the world given to us sanely works.
424 - use perl without spelling it as "$PERL_PATH". This is to help our
425 friends on Windows where the platform Perl often adds CR before
426 the end of line, and they bundle Git with a version of Perl that
427 does not do so, whose path is specified with $PERL_PATH. Note that we
428 provide a "perl" function which uses $PERL_PATH under the hood, so
429 you do not need to worry when simply running perl in the test scripts
430 (but you do, for example, on a shebang line or in a sub script
431 created via "write_script").
433 - use sh without spelling it as "$SHELL_PATH", when the script can
434 be misinterpreted by broken platform shell (e.g. Solaris).
436 - chdir around in tests. It is not sufficient to chdir to
437 somewhere and then chdir back to the original location later in
438 the test, as any intermediate step can fail and abort the test,
439 causing the next test to start in an unexpected directory. Do so
440 inside a subshell if necessary.
442 - Break the TAP output
444 The raw output from your test may be interpreted by a TAP harness. TAP
445 harnesses will ignore everything they don't know about, but don't step
446 on their toes in these areas:
448 - Don't print lines like "$x..$y" where $x and $y are integers.
450 - Don't print lines that begin with "ok" or "not ok".
452 TAP harnesses expect a line that begins with either "ok" and "not
453 ok" to signal a test passed or failed (and our harness already
454 produces such lines), so your script shouldn't emit such lines to
457 You can glean some further possible issues from the TAP grammar
458 (see http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TAP::Parser::Grammar#TAP_Grammar)
459 but the best indication is to just run the tests with prove(1),
460 it'll complain if anything is amiss.
464 - Inside <script> part, the standard output and standard error
465 streams are discarded, and the test harness only reports "ok" or
466 "not ok" to the end user running the tests. Under --verbose, they
467 are shown to help debugging the tests.
473 If you need to skip tests you should do so by using the three-arg form
474 of the test_* functions (see the "Test harness library" section
477 test_expect_success PERL 'I need Perl' '
478 perl -e "hlagh() if unf_unf()"
481 The advantage of skipping tests like this is that platforms that don't
482 have the PERL and other optional dependencies get an indication of how
483 many tests they're missing.
485 If the test code is too hairy for that (i.e. does a lot of setup work
486 outside test assertions) you can also skip all remaining tests by
487 setting skip_all and immediately call test_done:
489 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
491 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
495 The string you give to skip_all will be used as an explanation for why
496 the test was skipped.
501 Your script will be a sequence of tests, using helper functions
502 from the test harness library. At the end of the script, call
509 There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
510 library for your script to use.
512 - test_expect_success [<prereq>] <message> <script>
514 Usually takes two strings as parameters, and evaluates the
515 <script>. If it yields success, test is considered
516 successful. <message> should state what it is testing.
520 test_expect_success \
521 'git-write-tree should be able to write an empty tree.' \
522 'tree=$(git-write-tree)'
524 If you supply three parameters the first will be taken to be a
525 prerequisite; see the test_set_prereq and test_have_prereq
528 test_expect_success TTY 'git --paginate rev-list uses a pager' \
531 You can also supply a comma-separated list of prerequisites, in the
532 rare case where your test depends on more than one:
534 test_expect_success PERL,PYTHON 'yo dawg' \
535 ' test $(perl -E 'print eval "1 +" . qx[python -c "print 2"]') == "4" '
537 - test_expect_failure [<prereq>] <message> <script>
539 This is NOT the opposite of test_expect_success, but is used
540 to mark a test that demonstrates a known breakage. Unlike
541 the usual test_expect_success tests, which say "ok" on
542 success and "FAIL" on failure, this will say "FIXED" on
543 success and "still broken" on failure. Failures from these
544 tests won't cause -i (immediate) to stop.
546 Like test_expect_success this function can optionally use a three
547 argument invocation with a prerequisite as the first argument.
549 - test_debug <script>
551 This takes a single argument, <script>, and evaluates it only
552 when the test script is started with --debug command line
553 argument. This is primarily meant for use during the
554 development of a new test script.
558 Your test script must have test_done at the end. Its purpose
559 is to summarize successes and failures in the test script and
560 exit with an appropriate error code.
564 Make commit and tag names consistent by setting the author and
565 committer times to defined state. Subsequent calls will
566 advance the times by a fixed amount.
568 - test_commit <message> [<filename> [<contents>]]
570 Creates a commit with the given message, committing the given
571 file with the given contents (default for both is to reuse the
572 message string), and adds a tag (again reusing the message
573 string as name). Calls test_tick to make the SHA-1s
576 - test_merge <message> <commit-or-tag>
578 Merges the given rev using the given message. Like test_commit,
579 creates a tag and calls test_tick before committing.
581 - test_set_prereq <prereq>
583 Set a test prerequisite to be used later with test_have_prereq. The
584 test-lib will set some prerequisites for you, see the
585 "Prerequisites" section below for a full list of these.
587 Others you can set yourself and use later with either
588 test_have_prereq directly, or the three argument invocation of
589 test_expect_success and test_expect_failure.
591 - test_have_prereq <prereq>
593 Check if we have a prerequisite previously set with
594 test_set_prereq. The most common use of this directly is to skip
595 all the tests if we don't have some essential prerequisite:
597 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
599 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
603 - test_external [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
605 Execute a <script> with an <external> interpreter (like perl). This
606 was added for tests like t9700-perl-git.sh which do most of their
607 work in an external test script.
610 'GitwebCache::*FileCache*' \
611 perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9503/test_cache_interface.pl
613 If the test is outputting its own TAP you should set the
614 test_external_has_tap variable somewhere before calling the first
615 test_external* function. See t9700-perl-git.sh for an example.
617 # The external test will outputs its own plan
618 test_external_has_tap=1
620 - test_external_without_stderr [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
622 Like test_external but fail if there's any output on stderr,
623 instead of checking the exit code.
625 test_external_without_stderr \
627 perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9700/test.pl
629 - test_expect_code <exit-code> <command>
631 Run a command and ensure that it exits with the given exit code.
634 test_expect_success 'Merge with d/f conflicts' '
635 test_expect_code 1 git merge "merge msg" B master
638 - test_must_fail <git-command>
640 Run a git command and ensure it fails in a controlled way. Use
641 this instead of "! <git-command>". When git-command dies due to a
642 segfault, test_must_fail diagnoses it as an error; "! <git-command>"
643 treats it as just another expected failure, which would let such a
646 - test_might_fail <git-command>
648 Similar to test_must_fail, but tolerate success, too. Use this
649 instead of "<git-command> || :" to catch failures due to segv.
651 - test_cmp <expected> <actual>
653 Check whether the content of the <actual> file matches the
654 <expected> file. This behaves like "cmp" but produces more
655 helpful output when the test is run with "-v" option.
657 - test_line_count (= | -lt | -ge | ...) <length> <file>
659 Check whether a file has the length it is expected to.
661 - test_path_is_file <path> [<diagnosis>]
662 test_path_is_dir <path> [<diagnosis>]
663 test_path_is_missing <path> [<diagnosis>]
665 Check if the named path is a file, if the named path is a
666 directory, or if the named path does not exist, respectively,
667 and fail otherwise, showing the <diagnosis> text.
669 - test_when_finished <script>
671 Prepend <script> to a list of commands to run to clean up
672 at the end of the current test. If some clean-up command
673 fails, the test will not pass.
677 test_expect_success 'branch pointing to non-commit' '
678 git rev-parse HEAD^{tree} >.git/refs/heads/invalid &&
679 test_when_finished "git update-ref -d refs/heads/invalid" &&
683 - test_write_lines <lines>
685 Write <lines> on standard output, one line per argument.
686 Useful to prepare multi-line files in a compact form.
690 test_write_lines a b c d e f g >foo
692 Is a more compact equivalent of:
706 This command is useful for writing and debugging tests and must be
707 removed before submitting. It halts the execution of the test and
708 spawns a shell in the trash directory. Exit the shell to continue
711 test_expect_success 'test' '
712 git do-something >actual &&
714 test_cmp expected actual
717 - test_ln_s_add <path1> <path2>
719 This function helps systems whose filesystem does not support symbolic
720 links. Use it to add a symbolic link entry to the index when it is not
721 important that the file system entry is a symbolic link, i.e., instead
727 Sometimes it is possible to split a test in a part that does not need
728 the symbolic link in the file system and a part that does; then only
729 the latter part need be protected by a SYMLINKS prerequisite (see below).
734 These are the prerequisites that the test library predefines with
737 See the prereq argument to the test_* functions in the "Test harness
738 library" section above and the "test_have_prereq" function for how to
739 use these, and "test_set_prereq" for how to define your own.
743 Git wasn't compiled with NO_PYTHON=YesPlease. Wrap any tests that
744 need Python with this.
748 Git wasn't compiled with NO_PERL=YesPlease.
750 Even without the PERL prerequisite, tests can assume there is a
751 usable perl interpreter at $PERL_PATH, though it need not be
756 The filesystem supports POSIX style permission bits.
760 Backslashes in pathspec are not directory separators. This is not
761 set on Windows. See 6fd1106a for details.
765 The process retains the same pid across exec(2). See fb9a2bea for
770 The filesystem we're on supports creation of FIFOs (named pipes)
775 The filesystem we're on supports symbolic links. E.g. a FAT
776 filesystem doesn't support these. See 704a3143 for details.
780 Test is not run by root user, and an attempt to write to an
781 unwritable file is expected to fail correctly.
785 Git was compiled with USE_LIBPCRE=YesPlease. Wrap any tests
786 that use git-grep --perl-regexp or git-grep -P in these.
788 - CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS
790 Test is run on a case insensitive file system.
794 Test is run on a filesystem which converts decomposed utf-8 (nfd)
795 to precomposed utf-8 (nfc).
797 Tips for Writing Tests
798 ----------------------
800 As with any programming projects, existing programs are the best
801 source of the information. However, do _not_ emulate
802 t0000-basic.sh when writing your tests. The test is special in
803 that it tries to validate the very core of GIT. For example, it
804 knows that there will be 256 subdirectories under .git/objects/,
805 and it knows that the object ID of an empty tree is a certain
806 40-byte string. This is deliberately done so in t0000-basic.sh
807 because the things the very basic core test tries to achieve is
808 to serve as a basis for people who are changing the GIT internal
809 drastically. For these people, after making certain changes,
810 not seeing failures from the basic test _is_ a failure. And
811 such drastic changes to the core GIT that even changes these
812 otherwise supposedly stable object IDs should be accompanied by
813 an update to t0000-basic.sh.
815 However, other tests that simply rely on basic parts of the core
816 GIT working properly should not have that level of intimate
817 knowledge of the core GIT internals. If all the test scripts
818 hardcoded the object IDs like t0000-basic.sh does, that defeats
819 the purpose of t0000-basic.sh, which is to isolate that level of
820 validation in one place. Your test also ends up needing
821 updating when such a change to the internal happens, so do _not_
822 do it and leave the low level of validation to t0000-basic.sh.
827 You can use the coverage tests to find code paths that are not being
828 used or properly exercised yet.
830 To do that, run the coverage target at the top-level (not in the t/
835 That'll compile Git with GCC's coverage arguments, and generate a test
836 report with gcov after the tests finish. Running the coverage tests
837 can take a while, since running the tests in parallel is incompatible
838 with GCC's coverage mode.
840 After the tests have run you can generate a list of untested
843 make coverage-untested-functions
845 You can also generate a detailed per-file HTML report using the
846 Devel::Cover module. To install it do:
848 # On Debian or Ubuntu:
849 sudo aptitude install libdevel-cover-perl
851 # From the CPAN with cpanminus
852 curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo --self-upgrade
853 cpanm --sudo Devel::Cover
855 Then, at the top-level:
859 That'll generate a detailed cover report in the "cover_db_html"
860 directory, which you can then copy to a webserver, or inspect locally