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 also run each test individually from command line, like this:
55 $ sh ./t3010-ls-files-killed-modified.sh
56 ok 1 - git update-index --add to add various paths.
57 ok 2 - git ls-files -k to show killed files.
58 ok 3 - validate git ls-files -k output.
59 ok 4 - git ls-files -m to show modified files.
60 ok 5 - validate git ls-files -m output.
61 # passed all 5 test(s)
64 You can pass --verbose (or -v), --debug (or -d), and --immediate
65 (or -i) command line argument to the test, or by setting GIT_TEST_OPTS
66 appropriately before running "make".
69 This makes the test more verbose. Specifically, the
70 command being run and their output if any are also
74 This may help the person who is developing a new test.
75 It causes the command defined with test_debug to run.
78 This causes the test to immediately exit upon the first
82 This causes additional long-running tests to be run (where
83 available), for more exhaustive testing.
86 Execute all Git binaries with valgrind and exit with status
87 126 on errors (just like regular tests, this will only stop
88 the test script when running under -i). Valgrind errors
89 go to stderr, so you might want to pass the -v option, too.
91 Since it makes no sense to run the tests with --valgrind and
92 not see any output, this option implies --verbose. For
93 convenience, it also implies --tee.
96 In addition to printing the test output to the terminal,
97 write it to files named 't/test-results/$TEST_NAME.out'.
98 As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
99 run the tests with this option in parallel.
102 By default tests are run without dashed forms of
103 commands (like git-commit) in the PATH (it only uses
104 wrappers from ../bin-wrappers). Use this option to include
105 the build directory (..) in the PATH, which contains all
106 the dashed forms of commands. This option is currently
107 implied by other options like --valgrind and
111 Create "trash" directories used to store all temporary data during
112 testing under <directory>, instead of the t/ directory.
113 Using this option with a RAM-based filesystem (such as tmpfs)
114 can massively speed up the test suite.
116 You can also set the GIT_TEST_INSTALLED environment variable to
117 the bindir of an existing git installation to test that installation.
118 You still need to have built this git sandbox, from which various
119 test-* support programs, templates, and perl libraries are used.
120 If your installed git is incomplete, it will silently test parts of
121 your built version instead.
123 When using GIT_TEST_INSTALLED, you can also set GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH to
124 override the location of the dashed-form subcommands (what
125 GIT_EXEC_PATH would be used for during normal operation).
126 GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH defaults to `$GIT_TEST_INSTALLED/git --exec-path`.
132 In some environments, certain tests have no way of succeeding
133 due to platform limitation, such as lack of 'unzip' program, or
134 filesystem that do not allow arbitrary sequence of non-NUL bytes
137 You should be able to say something like
139 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS=t9200.8 sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh
143 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS='t[0-4]??? t91?? t9200.8' make
145 to omit such tests. The value of the environment variable is a
146 SP separated list of patterns that tells which tests to skip,
147 and either can match the "t[0-9]{4}" part to skip the whole
148 test, or t[0-9]{4} followed by ".$number" to say which
149 particular test to skip.
151 Note that some tests in the existing test suite rely on previous
152 test item, so you cannot arbitrarily disable one and expect the
153 remainder of test to check what the test originally was intended
160 The test files are named as:
162 tNNNN-commandname-details.sh
164 where N is a decimal digit.
166 First digit tells the family:
168 0 - the absolute basics and global stuff
169 1 - the basic commands concerning database
170 2 - the basic commands concerning the working tree
171 3 - the other basic commands (e.g. ls-files)
172 4 - the diff commands
173 5 - the pull and exporting commands
174 6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
175 7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
176 8 - the porcelainish commands concerning forensics
179 Second digit tells the particular command we are testing.
181 Third digit (optionally) tells the particular switch or group of switches
184 If you create files under t/ directory (i.e. here) that is not
185 the top-level test script, never name the file to match the above
186 pattern. The Makefile here considers all such files as the
187 top-level test script and tries to run all of them. A care is
188 especially needed if you are creating a common test library
189 file, similar to test-lib.sh, because such a library file may
190 not be suitable for standalone execution.
196 The test script is written as a shell script. It should start
197 with the standard "#!/bin/sh" with copyright notices, and an
198 assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
202 # Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
205 test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
207 This test registers the following structure in the cache
208 and tries to run git-ls-files with option --frotz.'
214 After assigning test_description, the test script should source
215 test-lib.sh like this:
219 This test harness library does the following things:
221 - If the script is invoked with command line argument --help
222 (or -h), it shows the test_description and exits.
224 - Creates an empty test directory with an empty .git/objects database
225 and chdir(2) into it. This directory is 't/trash
226 directory.$test_name_without_dotsh', with t/ subject to change by
227 the --root option documented above.
229 - Defines standard test helper functions for your scripts to
230 use. These functions are designed to make all scripts behave
231 consistently when command line arguments --verbose (or -v),
232 --debug (or -d), and --immediate (or -i) is given.
237 If you need to skip all the remaining tests you should set skip_all
238 and immediately call test_done. The string you give to skip_all will
239 be used as an explanation for why the test was skipped. for instance:
241 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
243 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
250 Your script will be a sequence of tests, using helper functions
251 from the test harness library. At the end of the script, call
258 There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
259 library for your script to use.
261 - test_expect_success [<prereq>] <message> <script>
263 Usually takes two strings as parameter, and evaluates the
264 <script>. If it yields success, test is considered
265 successful. <message> should state what it is testing.
269 test_expect_success \
270 'git-write-tree should be able to write an empty tree.' \
271 'tree=$(git-write-tree)'
273 If you supply three parameters the first will be taken to be a
274 prerequisite, see the test_set_prereq and test_have_prereq
277 test_expect_success TTY 'git --paginate rev-list uses a pager' \
280 - test_expect_failure [<prereq>] <message> <script>
282 This is NOT the opposite of test_expect_success, but is used
283 to mark a test that demonstrates a known breakage. Unlike
284 the usual test_expect_success tests, which say "ok" on
285 success and "FAIL" on failure, this will say "FIXED" on
286 success and "still broken" on failure. Failures from these
287 tests won't cause -i (immediate) to stop.
289 Like test_expect_success this function can optionally use a three
290 argument invocation with a prerequisite as the first argument.
292 - test_expect_code [<prereq>] <code> <message> <script>
294 Analogous to test_expect_success, but pass the test if it exits
295 with a given exit <code>
297 test_expect_code 1 'Merge with d/f conflicts' 'git merge "merge msg" B master'
299 - test_debug <script>
301 This takes a single argument, <script>, and evaluates it only
302 when the test script is started with --debug command line
303 argument. This is primarily meant for use during the
304 development of a new test script.
308 Your test script must have test_done at the end. Its purpose
309 is to summarize successes and failures in the test script and
310 exit with an appropriate error code.
314 Make commit and tag names consistent by setting the author and
315 committer times to defined stated. Subsequent calls will
316 advance the times by a fixed amount.
318 - test_commit <message> [<filename> [<contents>]]
320 Creates a commit with the given message, committing the given
321 file with the given contents (default for both is to reuse the
322 message string), and adds a tag (again reusing the message
323 string as name). Calls test_tick to make the SHA-1s
326 - test_merge <message> <commit-or-tag>
328 Merges the given rev using the given message. Like test_commit,
329 creates a tag and calls test_tick before committing.
331 - test_set_prereq SOME_PREREQ
333 Set a test prerequisite to be used later with test_have_prereq. The
334 test-lib will set some prerequisites for you, e.g. PERL and PYTHON
335 which are derived from ./GIT-BUILD-OPTIONS (grep test_set_prereq
336 test-lib.sh for more). Others you can set yourself and use later
337 with either test_have_prereq directly, or the three argument
338 invocation of test_expect_success and test_expect_failure.
340 - test_have_prereq SOME PREREQ
342 Check if we have a prerequisite previously set with
343 test_set_prereq. The most common use of this directly is to skip
344 all the tests if we don't have some essential prerequisite:
346 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
348 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
352 - test_external [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
354 Execute a <script> with an <external> interpreter (like perl). This
355 was added for tests like t9700-perl-git.sh which do most of their
356 work in an external test script.
359 'GitwebCache::*FileCache*' \
360 "$PERL_PATH" "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9503/test_cache_interface.pl
362 If the test is outputting its own TAP you should set the
363 test_external_has_tap variable somewhere before calling the first
364 test_external* function. See t9700-perl-git.sh for an example.
366 # The external test will outputs its own plan
367 test_external_has_tap=1
369 - test_external_without_stderr [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
371 Like test_external but fail if there's any output on stderr,
372 instead of checking the exit code.
374 test_external_without_stderr \
376 "$PERL_PATH" "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9700/test.pl
379 Tips for Writing Tests
380 ----------------------
382 As with any programming projects, existing programs are the best
383 source of the information. However, do _not_ emulate
384 t0000-basic.sh when writing your tests. The test is special in
385 that it tries to validate the very core of GIT. For example, it
386 knows that there will be 256 subdirectories under .git/objects/,
387 and it knows that the object ID of an empty tree is a certain
388 40-byte string. This is deliberately done so in t0000-basic.sh
389 because the things the very basic core test tries to achieve is
390 to serve as a basis for people who are changing the GIT internal
391 drastically. For these people, after making certain changes,
392 not seeing failures from the basic test _is_ a failure. And
393 such drastic changes to the core GIT that even changes these
394 otherwise supposedly stable object IDs should be accompanied by
395 an update to t0000-basic.sh.
397 However, other tests that simply rely on basic parts of the core
398 GIT working properly should not have that level of intimate
399 knowledge of the core GIT internals. If all the test scripts
400 hardcoded the object IDs like t0000-basic.sh does, that defeats
401 the purpose of t0000-basic.sh, which is to isolate that level of
402 validation in one place. Your test also ends up needing
403 updating when such a change to the internal happens, so do _not_
404 do it and leave the low level of validation to t0000-basic.sh.