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1 Core GIT Tests
2 ==============
3
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
6 and read their output.
7
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.
12
13
14 Running Tests
15 -------------
16
17 The easiest way to run tests is to say "make". This runs all
18 the tests.
19
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
24 ...
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)
29 1..43
30 *** t0001-init.sh ***
31 ok 1 - plain
32 ok 2 - plain with GIT_WORK_TREE
33 ok 3 - plain bare
34
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):
38
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... )===
46
47 prove and other harnesses come with a lot of useful options. The
48 --state option in particular is very useful:
49
50 # Repeat until no more failures
51 $ prove -j 15 --state=failed,save ./t[0-9]*.sh
52
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.
56
57 $ make DEFAULT_TEST_TARGET=prove GIT_PROVE_OPTS='--timer --jobs 16' test
58
59 You can also run each test individually from command line, like this:
60
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)
68 1..5
69
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".
73
74 -v::
75 --verbose::
76 This makes the test more verbose. Specifically, the
77 command being run and their output if any are also
78 output.
79
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.
84
85 -x::
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.
90
91 -d::
92 --debug::
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
98 the test finished.
99
100 -i::
101 --immediate::
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
106 to diagnose the bug.
107
108 -l::
109 --long-tests::
110 This causes additional long-running tests to be run (where
111 available), for more exhaustive testing.
112
113 -r::
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.
118
119 --valgrind=<tool>::
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).
123
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.
127
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
131 installation.
132
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
136 issues.
137
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
143 't/valgrind/bin/'.
144
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.
149
150 --tee::
151 In addition to printing the test output to the terminal,
152 write it to files named 't/test-results/$TEST_NAME.out'.
153 As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
154 run the tests with this option in parallel.
155
156 --with-dashes::
157 By default tests are run without dashed forms of
158 commands (like git-commit) in the PATH (it only uses
159 wrappers from ../bin-wrappers). Use this option to include
160 the build directory (..) in the PATH, which contains all
161 the dashed forms of commands. This option is currently
162 implied by other options like --valgrind and
163 GIT_TEST_INSTALLED.
164
165 --root=<directory>::
166 Create "trash" directories used to store all temporary data during
167 testing under <directory>, instead of the t/ directory.
168 Using this option with a RAM-based filesystem (such as tmpfs)
169 can massively speed up the test suite.
170
171 --chain-lint::
172 --no-chain-lint::
173 If --chain-lint is enabled, the test harness will check each
174 test to make sure that it properly "&&-chains" all commands (so
175 that a failure in the middle does not go unnoticed by the final
176 exit code of the test). This check is performed in addition to
177 running the tests themselves. You may also enable or disable
178 this feature by setting the GIT_TEST_CHAIN_LINT environment
179 variable to "1" or "0", respectively.
180
181 You can also set the GIT_TEST_INSTALLED environment variable to
182 the bindir of an existing git installation to test that installation.
183 You still need to have built this git sandbox, from which various
184 test-* support programs, templates, and perl libraries are used.
185 If your installed git is incomplete, it will silently test parts of
186 your built version instead.
187
188 When using GIT_TEST_INSTALLED, you can also set GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH to
189 override the location of the dashed-form subcommands (what
190 GIT_EXEC_PATH would be used for during normal operation).
191 GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH defaults to `$GIT_TEST_INSTALLED/git --exec-path`.
192
193
194 Skipping Tests
195 --------------
196
197 In some environments, certain tests have no way of succeeding
198 due to platform limitation, such as lack of 'unzip' program, or
199 filesystem that do not allow arbitrary sequence of non-NUL bytes
200 as pathnames.
201
202 You should be able to say something like
203
204 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS=t9200.8 sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh
205
206 and even:
207
208 $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS='t[0-4]??? t91?? t9200.8' make
209
210 to omit such tests. The value of the environment variable is a
211 SP separated list of patterns that tells which tests to skip,
212 and either can match the "t[0-9]{4}" part to skip the whole
213 test, or t[0-9]{4} followed by ".$number" to say which
214 particular test to skip.
215
216 For an individual test suite --run could be used to specify that
217 only some tests should be run or that some tests should be
218 excluded from a run.
219
220 The argument for --run is a list of individual test numbers or
221 ranges with an optional negation prefix that define what tests in
222 a test suite to include in the run. A range is two numbers
223 separated with a dash and matches a range of tests with both ends
224 been included. You may omit the first or the second number to
225 mean "from the first test" or "up to the very last test"
226 respectively.
227
228 Optional prefix of '!' means that the test or a range of tests
229 should be excluded from the run.
230
231 If --run starts with an unprefixed number or range the initial
232 set of tests to run is empty. If the first item starts with '!'
233 all the tests are added to the initial set. After initial set is
234 determined every test number or range is added or excluded from
235 the set one by one, from left to right.
236
237 Individual numbers or ranges could be separated either by a space
238 or a comma.
239
240 For example, to run only tests up to a specific test (21), one
241 could do this:
242
243 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-21'
244
245 or this:
246
247 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-21'
248
249 Common case is to run several setup tests (1, 2, 3) and then a
250 specific test (21) that relies on that setup:
251
252 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1 2 3 21'
253
254 or:
255
256 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run=1,2,3,21
257
258 or:
259
260 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-3 21'
261
262 As noted above, the test set is built going though items left to
263 right, so this:
264
265 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-4 !3'
266
267 will run tests 1, 2, and 4. Items that comes later have higher
268 precendence. It means that this:
269
270 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!3 1-4'
271
272 would just run tests from 1 to 4, including 3.
273
274 You may use negation with ranges. The following will run all
275 test in the test suite except from 7 up to 11:
276
277 $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!7-11'
278
279 Some tests in a test suite rely on the previous tests performing
280 certain actions, specifically some tests are designated as
281 "setup" test, so you cannot _arbitrarily_ disable one test and
282 expect the rest to function correctly.
283
284 --run is mostly useful when you want to focus on a specific test
285 and know what setup is needed for it. Or when you want to run
286 everything up to a certain test.
287
288
289 Naming Tests
290 ------------
291
292 The test files are named as:
293
294 tNNNN-commandname-details.sh
295
296 where N is a decimal digit.
297
298 First digit tells the family:
299
300 0 - the absolute basics and global stuff
301 1 - the basic commands concerning database
302 2 - the basic commands concerning the working tree
303 3 - the other basic commands (e.g. ls-files)
304 4 - the diff commands
305 5 - the pull and exporting commands
306 6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
307 7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
308 8 - the porcelainish commands concerning forensics
309 9 - the git tools
310
311 Second digit tells the particular command we are testing.
312
313 Third digit (optionally) tells the particular switch or group of switches
314 we are testing.
315
316 If you create files under t/ directory (i.e. here) that is not
317 the top-level test script, never name the file to match the above
318 pattern. The Makefile here considers all such files as the
319 top-level test script and tries to run all of them. Care is
320 especially needed if you are creating a common test library
321 file, similar to test-lib.sh, because such a library file may
322 not be suitable for standalone execution.
323
324
325 Writing Tests
326 -------------
327
328 The test script is written as a shell script. It should start
329 with the standard "#!/bin/sh" with copyright notices, and an
330 assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
331
332 #!/bin/sh
333 #
334 # Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
335 #
336
337 test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
338
339 This test registers the following structure in the cache
340 and tries to run git-ls-files with option --frotz.'
341
342
343 Source 'test-lib.sh'
344 --------------------
345
346 After assigning test_description, the test script should source
347 test-lib.sh like this:
348
349 . ./test-lib.sh
350
351 This test harness library does the following things:
352
353 - If the script is invoked with command line argument --help
354 (or -h), it shows the test_description and exits.
355
356 - Creates an empty test directory with an empty .git/objects database
357 and chdir(2) into it. This directory is 't/trash
358 directory.$test_name_without_dotsh', with t/ subject to change by
359 the --root option documented above.
360
361 - Defines standard test helper functions for your scripts to
362 use. These functions are designed to make all scripts behave
363 consistently when command line arguments --verbose (or -v),
364 --debug (or -d), and --immediate (or -i) is given.
365
366 Do's, don'ts & things to keep in mind
367 -------------------------------------
368
369 Here are a few examples of things you probably should and shouldn't do
370 when writing tests.
371
372 Do:
373
374 - Put all code inside test_expect_success and other assertions.
375
376 Even code that isn't a test per se, but merely some setup code
377 should be inside a test assertion.
378
379 - Chain your test assertions
380
381 Write test code like this:
382
383 git merge foo &&
384 git push bar &&
385 test ...
386
387 Instead of:
388
389 git merge hla
390 git push gh
391 test ...
392
393 That way all of the commands in your tests will succeed or fail. If
394 you must ignore the return value of something, consider using a
395 helper function (e.g. use sane_unset instead of unset, in order
396 to avoid unportable return value for unsetting a variable that was
397 already unset), or prepending the command with test_might_fail or
398 test_must_fail.
399
400 - Check the test coverage for your tests. See the "Test coverage"
401 below.
402
403 Don't blindly follow test coverage metrics; if a new function you added
404 doesn't have any coverage, then you're probably doing something wrong,
405 but having 100% coverage doesn't necessarily mean that you tested
406 everything.
407
408 Tests that are likely to smoke out future regressions are better
409 than tests that just inflate the coverage metrics.
410
411 - When a test checks for an absolute path that a git command generated,
412 construct the expected value using $(pwd) rather than $PWD,
413 $TEST_DIRECTORY, or $TRASH_DIRECTORY. It makes a difference on
414 Windows, where the shell (MSYS bash) mangles absolute path names.
415 For details, see the commit message of 4114156ae9.
416
417 Don't:
418
419 - exit() within a <script> part.
420
421 The harness will catch this as a programming error of the test.
422 Use test_done instead if you need to stop the tests early (see
423 "Skipping tests" below).
424
425 - use '! git cmd' when you want to make sure the git command exits
426 with failure in a controlled way by calling "die()". Instead,
427 use 'test_must_fail git cmd'. This will signal a failure if git
428 dies in an unexpected way (e.g. segfault).
429
430 On the other hand, don't use test_must_fail for running regular
431 platform commands; just use '! cmd'. We are not in the business
432 of verifying that the world given to us sanely works.
433
434 - use perl without spelling it as "$PERL_PATH". This is to help our
435 friends on Windows where the platform Perl often adds CR before
436 the end of line, and they bundle Git with a version of Perl that
437 does not do so, whose path is specified with $PERL_PATH. Note that we
438 provide a "perl" function which uses $PERL_PATH under the hood, so
439 you do not need to worry when simply running perl in the test scripts
440 (but you do, for example, on a shebang line or in a sub script
441 created via "write_script").
442
443 - use sh without spelling it as "$SHELL_PATH", when the script can
444 be misinterpreted by broken platform shell (e.g. Solaris).
445
446 - chdir around in tests. It is not sufficient to chdir to
447 somewhere and then chdir back to the original location later in
448 the test, as any intermediate step can fail and abort the test,
449 causing the next test to start in an unexpected directory. Do so
450 inside a subshell if necessary.
451
452 - Break the TAP output
453
454 The raw output from your test may be interpreted by a TAP harness. TAP
455 harnesses will ignore everything they don't know about, but don't step
456 on their toes in these areas:
457
458 - Don't print lines like "$x..$y" where $x and $y are integers.
459
460 - Don't print lines that begin with "ok" or "not ok".
461
462 TAP harnesses expect a line that begins with either "ok" and "not
463 ok" to signal a test passed or failed (and our harness already
464 produces such lines), so your script shouldn't emit such lines to
465 their output.
466
467 You can glean some further possible issues from the TAP grammar
468 (see http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TAP::Parser::Grammar#TAP_Grammar)
469 but the best indication is to just run the tests with prove(1),
470 it'll complain if anything is amiss.
471
472 Keep in mind:
473
474 - Inside <script> part, the standard output and standard error
475 streams are discarded, and the test harness only reports "ok" or
476 "not ok" to the end user running the tests. Under --verbose, they
477 are shown to help debugging the tests.
478
479
480 Skipping tests
481 --------------
482
483 If you need to skip tests you should do so by using the three-arg form
484 of the test_* functions (see the "Test harness library" section
485 below), e.g.:
486
487 test_expect_success PERL 'I need Perl' '
488 perl -e "hlagh() if unf_unf()"
489 '
490
491 The advantage of skipping tests like this is that platforms that don't
492 have the PERL and other optional dependencies get an indication of how
493 many tests they're missing.
494
495 If the test code is too hairy for that (i.e. does a lot of setup work
496 outside test assertions) you can also skip all remaining tests by
497 setting skip_all and immediately call test_done:
498
499 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
500 then
501 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
502 test_done
503 fi
504
505 The string you give to skip_all will be used as an explanation for why
506 the test was skipped.
507
508 End with test_done
509 ------------------
510
511 Your script will be a sequence of tests, using helper functions
512 from the test harness library. At the end of the script, call
513 'test_done'.
514
515
516 Test harness library
517 --------------------
518
519 There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
520 library for your script to use.
521
522 - test_expect_success [<prereq>] <message> <script>
523
524 Usually takes two strings as parameters, and evaluates the
525 <script>. If it yields success, test is considered
526 successful. <message> should state what it is testing.
527
528 Example:
529
530 test_expect_success \
531 'git-write-tree should be able to write an empty tree.' \
532 'tree=$(git-write-tree)'
533
534 If you supply three parameters the first will be taken to be a
535 prerequisite; see the test_set_prereq and test_have_prereq
536 documentation below:
537
538 test_expect_success TTY 'git --paginate rev-list uses a pager' \
539 ' ... '
540
541 You can also supply a comma-separated list of prerequisites, in the
542 rare case where your test depends on more than one:
543
544 test_expect_success PERL,PYTHON 'yo dawg' \
545 ' test $(perl -E 'print eval "1 +" . qx[python -c "print 2"]') == "4" '
546
547 - test_expect_failure [<prereq>] <message> <script>
548
549 This is NOT the opposite of test_expect_success, but is used
550 to mark a test that demonstrates a known breakage. Unlike
551 the usual test_expect_success tests, which say "ok" on
552 success and "FAIL" on failure, this will say "FIXED" on
553 success and "still broken" on failure. Failures from these
554 tests won't cause -i (immediate) to stop.
555
556 Like test_expect_success this function can optionally use a three
557 argument invocation with a prerequisite as the first argument.
558
559 - test_debug <script>
560
561 This takes a single argument, <script>, and evaluates it only
562 when the test script is started with --debug command line
563 argument. This is primarily meant for use during the
564 development of a new test script.
565
566 - debug <git-command>
567
568 Run a git command inside a debugger. This is primarily meant for
569 use when debugging a failing test script.
570
571 - test_done
572
573 Your test script must have test_done at the end. Its purpose
574 is to summarize successes and failures in the test script and
575 exit with an appropriate error code.
576
577 - test_tick
578
579 Make commit and tag names consistent by setting the author and
580 committer times to defined state. Subsequent calls will
581 advance the times by a fixed amount.
582
583 - test_commit <message> [<filename> [<contents>]]
584
585 Creates a commit with the given message, committing the given
586 file with the given contents (default for both is to reuse the
587 message string), and adds a tag (again reusing the message
588 string as name). Calls test_tick to make the SHA-1s
589 reproducible.
590
591 - test_merge <message> <commit-or-tag>
592
593 Merges the given rev using the given message. Like test_commit,
594 creates a tag and calls test_tick before committing.
595
596 - test_set_prereq <prereq>
597
598 Set a test prerequisite to be used later with test_have_prereq. The
599 test-lib will set some prerequisites for you, see the
600 "Prerequisites" section below for a full list of these.
601
602 Others you can set yourself and use later with either
603 test_have_prereq directly, or the three argument invocation of
604 test_expect_success and test_expect_failure.
605
606 - test_have_prereq <prereq>
607
608 Check if we have a prerequisite previously set with
609 test_set_prereq. The most common use of this directly is to skip
610 all the tests if we don't have some essential prerequisite:
611
612 if ! test_have_prereq PERL
613 then
614 skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
615 test_done
616 fi
617
618 - test_external [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
619
620 Execute a <script> with an <external> interpreter (like perl). This
621 was added for tests like t9700-perl-git.sh which do most of their
622 work in an external test script.
623
624 test_external \
625 'GitwebCache::*FileCache*' \
626 perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9503/test_cache_interface.pl
627
628 If the test is outputting its own TAP you should set the
629 test_external_has_tap variable somewhere before calling the first
630 test_external* function. See t9700-perl-git.sh for an example.
631
632 # The external test will outputs its own plan
633 test_external_has_tap=1
634
635 - test_external_without_stderr [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
636
637 Like test_external but fail if there's any output on stderr,
638 instead of checking the exit code.
639
640 test_external_without_stderr \
641 'Perl API' \
642 perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9700/test.pl
643
644 - test_expect_code <exit-code> <command>
645
646 Run a command and ensure that it exits with the given exit code.
647 For example:
648
649 test_expect_success 'Merge with d/f conflicts' '
650 test_expect_code 1 git merge "merge msg" B master
651 '
652
653 - test_must_fail <git-command>
654
655 Run a git command and ensure it fails in a controlled way. Use
656 this instead of "! <git-command>". When git-command dies due to a
657 segfault, test_must_fail diagnoses it as an error; "! <git-command>"
658 treats it as just another expected failure, which would let such a
659 bug go unnoticed.
660
661 - test_might_fail <git-command>
662
663 Similar to test_must_fail, but tolerate success, too. Use this
664 instead of "<git-command> || :" to catch failures due to segv.
665
666 - test_cmp <expected> <actual>
667
668 Check whether the content of the <actual> file matches the
669 <expected> file. This behaves like "cmp" but produces more
670 helpful output when the test is run with "-v" option.
671
672 - test_line_count (= | -lt | -ge | ...) <length> <file>
673
674 Check whether a file has the length it is expected to.
675
676 - test_path_is_file <path> [<diagnosis>]
677 test_path_is_dir <path> [<diagnosis>]
678 test_path_is_missing <path> [<diagnosis>]
679
680 Check if the named path is a file, if the named path is a
681 directory, or if the named path does not exist, respectively,
682 and fail otherwise, showing the <diagnosis> text.
683
684 - test_when_finished <script>
685
686 Prepend <script> to a list of commands to run to clean up
687 at the end of the current test. If some clean-up command
688 fails, the test will not pass.
689
690 Example:
691
692 test_expect_success 'branch pointing to non-commit' '
693 git rev-parse HEAD^{tree} >.git/refs/heads/invalid &&
694 test_when_finished "git update-ref -d refs/heads/invalid" &&
695 ...
696 '
697
698 - test_write_lines <lines>
699
700 Write <lines> on standard output, one line per argument.
701 Useful to prepare multi-line files in a compact form.
702
703 Example:
704
705 test_write_lines a b c d e f g >foo
706
707 Is a more compact equivalent of:
708 cat >foo <<-EOF
709 a
710 b
711 c
712 d
713 e
714 f
715 g
716 EOF
717
718
719 - test_pause
720
721 This command is useful for writing and debugging tests and must be
722 removed before submitting. It halts the execution of the test and
723 spawns a shell in the trash directory. Exit the shell to continue
724 the test. Example:
725
726 test_expect_success 'test' '
727 git do-something >actual &&
728 test_pause &&
729 test_cmp expected actual
730 '
731
732 - test_ln_s_add <path1> <path2>
733
734 This function helps systems whose filesystem does not support symbolic
735 links. Use it to add a symbolic link entry to the index when it is not
736 important that the file system entry is a symbolic link, i.e., instead
737 of the sequence
738
739 ln -s foo bar &&
740 git add bar
741
742 Sometimes it is possible to split a test in a part that does not need
743 the symbolic link in the file system and a part that does; then only
744 the latter part need be protected by a SYMLINKS prerequisite (see below).
745
746 Prerequisites
747 -------------
748
749 These are the prerequisites that the test library predefines with
750 test_have_prereq.
751
752 See the prereq argument to the test_* functions in the "Test harness
753 library" section above and the "test_have_prereq" function for how to
754 use these, and "test_set_prereq" for how to define your own.
755
756 - PYTHON
757
758 Git wasn't compiled with NO_PYTHON=YesPlease. Wrap any tests that
759 need Python with this.
760
761 - PERL
762
763 Git wasn't compiled with NO_PERL=YesPlease.
764
765 Even without the PERL prerequisite, tests can assume there is a
766 usable perl interpreter at $PERL_PATH, though it need not be
767 particularly modern.
768
769 - POSIXPERM
770
771 The filesystem supports POSIX style permission bits.
772
773 - BSLASHPSPEC
774
775 Backslashes in pathspec are not directory separators. This is not
776 set on Windows. See 6fd1106a for details.
777
778 - EXECKEEPSPID
779
780 The process retains the same pid across exec(2). See fb9a2bea for
781 details.
782
783 - PIPE
784
785 The filesystem we're on supports creation of FIFOs (named pipes)
786 via mkfifo(1).
787
788 - SYMLINKS
789
790 The filesystem we're on supports symbolic links. E.g. a FAT
791 filesystem doesn't support these. See 704a3143 for details.
792
793 - SANITY
794
795 Test is not run by root user, and an attempt to write to an
796 unwritable file is expected to fail correctly.
797
798 - LIBPCRE
799
800 Git was compiled with USE_LIBPCRE=YesPlease. Wrap any tests
801 that use git-grep --perl-regexp or git-grep -P in these.
802
803 - CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS
804
805 Test is run on a case insensitive file system.
806
807 - UTF8_NFD_TO_NFC
808
809 Test is run on a filesystem which converts decomposed utf-8 (nfd)
810 to precomposed utf-8 (nfc).
811
812 Tips for Writing Tests
813 ----------------------
814
815 As with any programming projects, existing programs are the best
816 source of the information. However, do _not_ emulate
817 t0000-basic.sh when writing your tests. The test is special in
818 that it tries to validate the very core of GIT. For example, it
819 knows that there will be 256 subdirectories under .git/objects/,
820 and it knows that the object ID of an empty tree is a certain
821 40-byte string. This is deliberately done so in t0000-basic.sh
822 because the things the very basic core test tries to achieve is
823 to serve as a basis for people who are changing the GIT internal
824 drastically. For these people, after making certain changes,
825 not seeing failures from the basic test _is_ a failure. And
826 such drastic changes to the core GIT that even changes these
827 otherwise supposedly stable object IDs should be accompanied by
828 an update to t0000-basic.sh.
829
830 However, other tests that simply rely on basic parts of the core
831 GIT working properly should not have that level of intimate
832 knowledge of the core GIT internals. If all the test scripts
833 hardcoded the object IDs like t0000-basic.sh does, that defeats
834 the purpose of t0000-basic.sh, which is to isolate that level of
835 validation in one place. Your test also ends up needing
836 updating when such a change to the internal happens, so do _not_
837 do it and leave the low level of validation to t0000-basic.sh.
838
839 Test coverage
840 -------------
841
842 You can use the coverage tests to find code paths that are not being
843 used or properly exercised yet.
844
845 To do that, run the coverage target at the top-level (not in the t/
846 directory):
847
848 make coverage
849
850 That'll compile Git with GCC's coverage arguments, and generate a test
851 report with gcov after the tests finish. Running the coverage tests
852 can take a while, since running the tests in parallel is incompatible
853 with GCC's coverage mode.
854
855 After the tests have run you can generate a list of untested
856 functions:
857
858 make coverage-untested-functions
859
860 You can also generate a detailed per-file HTML report using the
861 Devel::Cover module. To install it do:
862
863 # On Debian or Ubuntu:
864 sudo aptitude install libdevel-cover-perl
865
866 # From the CPAN with cpanminus
867 curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo --self-upgrade
868 cpanm --sudo Devel::Cover
869
870 Then, at the top-level:
871
872 make cover_db_html
873
874 That'll generate a detailed cover report in the "cover_db_html"
875 directory, which you can then copy to a webserver, or inspect locally
876 in a browser.