xref: /freebsd/tools/regression/README (revision 38f0b757fd84d17d0fc24739a7cda160c4516d81)
1$FreeBSD$
2
3This directory is for regression test programs.
4
5A regression test program is one that will exercise a particular bit of the
6system to check that we have not reintroduced an old bug.
7
8Tests should be implemented in files with a .t extension.  Each .t file
9can contain more than one test, and can be implemented in any scripting
10language -- /bin/sh, Perl...
11
12The test protocol is quite simple.  At its most basic, each .t file should,
13when run, print a line in this format:
14
15   1..m
16
17where m is the number of tests that will be run.
18
19Each test should produce a single line of output.  This line should start
20with one of
21
22   ok n
23   not ok n
24
25to indicate whether or not the test succeeded.  'n' is the test's number.
26Anything after this on the line (up to the first '#' if present) is
27considered to be the name of the test.  Naming tests is optional, but
28encouraged.
29
30A test may be written which is conditional, and may need to be skipped.
31For example, the netinet tests require 'options INET' in the kernel.
32A test may be skipped by printing '# skip Reason for skipping' after the
33test name.  For example,
34
35    ok 1 - netinet # skip 'options INET' not compiled in
36
37A test may be flagged as 'todo'.  This indicates that you expect the test
38to fail (perhaps because the necessary functionality hasn't been written
39yet).  'todo' tests are expected to fail, so when they start working the
40test framework can alert you to this happy occurrence.  Flag these tests
41with a '# TODO' comment after the test name
42
43    not ok 1 - infiniteloop # TODO write test for an infinite loop
44
45This is modelled on the protocol followed by the Test::Harness Perl
46module (and therefore much of the automated testing carried out by the
47Perl community).  More documentation can be found at:
48
49    http://search.cpan.org/~petdance/Test-Harness-2.42/lib/Test/Harness.pm
50
51To run the tests and parse their output install the devel/p5-Test-Harness
52port.  This includes the prove(1) command which is used to run the tests
53and collate the output.
54
55    prove geom_concat		# run all the tests in geom_concat
56    prove -r lib		# run all tests in lib/, and subdirectories
57    prove -r -v lib		# as above, with verbose output
58    prove -r			# run *all* the tests
59
60Tests that are for parts of the base system should go into a directory here
61which is the same as their path relative to src/, for example the uuencode(1)
62utility resides in src/usr.bin/uuencode so its regression test resides in
63src/tools/regression/usr.bin/uuencode.
64
65To avoid the pre-commit check program complaining about the lack of
66CVS keywords in test data files, use a .in suffix for input files and
67a .out suffix for output files.
68
69To execute individual regression tests for binaries that you are
70developing, add their directory in the path before running the tests.
71Example:
72cd /usr/src/tools/regression/usr.bin
73(PATH=/home/user/src/experimental/jot:$PATH ; make SUBDIR=jot)
74
75Please make a subdir per other regression test, and add a brief description to
76this file.
77
78acct		Exercise the integer to float conversion used in acct(5)
79geom		Some tests and an out-of-kernel simulator for the GEOM code
80ia64		ia64 specific regression tests
81nfsmmap		Some tests to exercise some tricky cases in NFS and mmap
82p1003_1b	Exercise 1003.1B scheduler
83pipe		Pipe code regression test
84fsx		General filesystem exerciser
85sysvmsg 	SysV IPC Message Queue Regression Utility
86sysvsem 	SysV IPC Semaphore Regression Utility
87sysvshm 	SysV IPC Shared Memory Regression Utility
88gaithrstress	General threaded getaddrinfo(3) exerciser
89date		Date(1) + format string regression test
90