xref: /freebsd/tools/regression/README (revision 7899f917b1c0ea178f1d2be0cfb452086d079d23)
1
2This directory is for regression test programs.
3
4A regression test program is one that will exercise a particular bit of the
5system to check that we have not reintroduced an old bug.
6
7Tests should be implemented in files with a .t extension.  Each .t file
8can contain more than one test, and can be implemented in any scripting
9language -- /bin/sh, Perl...
10
11The test protocol is quite simple.  At its most basic, each .t file should,
12when run, print a line in this format:
13
14   1..m
15
16where m is the number of tests that will be run.
17
18Each test should produce a single line of output.  This line should start
19with one of
20
21   ok n
22   not ok n
23
24to indicate whether or not the test succeeded.  'n' is the test's number.
25Anything after this on the line (up to the first '#' if present) is
26considered to be the name of the test.  Naming tests is optional, but
27encouraged.
28
29A test may be written which is conditional, and may need to be skipped.
30For example, the netinet tests require 'options INET' in the kernel.
31A test may be skipped by printing '# skip Reason for skipping' after the
32test name.  For example,
33
34    ok 1 - netinet # skip 'options INET' not compiled in
35
36A test may be flagged as 'todo'.  This indicates that you expect the test
37to fail (perhaps because the necessary functionality hasn't been written
38yet).  'todo' tests are expected to fail, so when they start working the
39test framework can alert you to this happy occurrence.  Flag these tests
40with a '# TODO' comment after the test name
41
42    not ok 1 - infiniteloop # TODO write test for an infinite loop
43
44This is modelled on the protocol followed by the Test::Harness Perl
45module (and therefore much of the automated testing carried out by the
46Perl community).  More documentation can be found at:
47
48    http://search.cpan.org/~petdance/Test-Harness-2.42/lib/Test/Harness.pm
49
50To run the tests and parse their output install the devel/p5-Test-Harness
51port.  This includes the prove(1) command which is used to run the tests
52and collate the output.
53
54    prove geom_concat		# run all the tests in geom_concat
55    prove -r lib		# run all tests in lib/, and subdirectories
56    prove -r -v lib		# as above, with verbose output
57    prove -r			# run *all* the tests
58
59Tests that are for parts of the base system should go into a directory here
60which is the same as their path relative to src/, for example the uuencode(1)
61utility resides in src/usr.bin/uuencode so its regression test resides in
62src/tools/regression/usr.bin/uuencode.
63
64To avoid the pre-commit check program complaining about the lack of
65CVS keywords in test data files, use a .in suffix for input files and
66a .out suffix for output files.
67
68To execute individual regression tests for binaries that you are
69developing, add their directory in the path before running the tests.
70Example:
71cd /usr/src/tools/regression/usr.bin
72(PATH=/home/user/src/experimental/jot:$PATH ; make SUBDIR=jot)
73
74Please make a subdir per other regression test, and add a brief description to
75this file.
76
77acct		Exercise the integer to float conversion used in acct(5)
78geom		Some tests and an out-of-kernel simulator for the GEOM code
79nfsmmap		Some tests to exercise some tricky cases in NFS and mmap
80p1003_1b	Exercise 1003.1B scheduler
81pipe		Pipe code regression test
82fsx		General filesystem exerciser
83sysvmsg 	SysV IPC Message Queue Regression Utility
84sysvsem 	SysV IPC Semaphore Regression Utility
85sysvshm 	SysV IPC Shared Memory Regression Utility
86gaithrstress	General threaded getaddrinfo(3) exerciser
87date		Date(1) + format string regression test
88