X-Git-Url: https://git.notmuchmail.org/git?p=notmuch;a=blobdiff_plain;f=test%2FREADME;h=3f54af58876f324a851565a1e8b16633b61d5b08;hp=44ff653aa2bd5b56c73b795ee06341b7d87f7bba;hb=HEAD;hpb=8ae753f30fb90419c50b9bb1fc87618dd1663bc9

diff --git a/test/README b/test/README
index 44ff653a..a81808b1 100644
--- a/test/README
+++ b/test/README
@@ -8,16 +8,41 @@ enhance.
 
 Prerequisites
 -------------
+The test system itself requires:
+
+  - bash(1) version 4.0 or newer
+
+Without bash 4.0+ the tests just refuse to run.
+
 Some tests require external dependencies to run. Without them, they
 will be skipped, or (rarely) marked failed. Please install these, so
 that you know if you break anything.
 
+  - GNU tar(1)
   - dtach(1)
   - emacs(1)
   - emacsclient(1)
   - gdb(1)
   - gpg(1)
   - python(1)
+  - xapian-metadata(1)
+
+If your system lacks these tools or have older, non-upgradable versions
+of these, please (possibly compile and) install these to some other
+path, for example /usr/local/bin or /opt/gnu/bin. Then prepend the
+chosen directory to your PATH before running the tests.
+
+e.g. env PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:$PATH make test
+
+For FreeBSD you need to install latest gdb from ports or packages and
+provide path to it in TEST_GDB environment variable before executing
+the tests, native FreeBSD gdb does not not work.  If you install
+coreutils, which provides GNU versions of basic utils like 'date' and
+'base64' on FreeBSD, the test suite will use these instead of the
+native ones. This provides robustness against portability issues with
+these system tools. Most often the tests are written, reviewed and
+tested on Linux system so such portability issues arise from time to
+time.
 
 Running Tests
 -------------
@@ -25,8 +50,8 @@ The easiest way to run tests is to say "make test", (or simply run the
 notmuch-test script). Either command will run all available tests.
 
 Alternately, you can run a specific subset of tests by simply invoking
-one of the executable scripts in this directory, (such as ./search,
-./reply, etc). Note that you will probably want "make test-binaries"
+one of the executable scripts in this directory, (such as ./T*-search.sh,
+./T*-reply.sh, etc). Note that you will probably want "make test-binaries"
 before running individual tests.
 
 The following command-line options are available when running tests:
@@ -55,26 +80,35 @@ The following command-line options are available when running tests:
 	As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
 	run the tests with this option in parallel.
 
---root=<dir>::
-	This runs the testsuites specified under a seperate directory.
-	However, caution is advised, as not all tests are maintained
-	with this relocation in mind, so some tests may behave
-	differently.
-
-	Pointing this argument at a tmpfs filesystem can improve the
-	speed of the test suite for some users.
-
 When invoking the test suite via "make test" any of the above options
 can be specified as follows:
 
 	make test OPTIONS="--verbose"
 
-You can choose an emacs binary to run the tests in one of the
-following ways.
+You can choose an emacs binary (and corresponding emacsclient) to run
+the tests in one of the following ways.
 
-	TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs make test
-	TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs ./emacs
-	make test TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs
+	TEST_EMACS=my-emacs TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient make test
+	TEST_EMACS=my-emacs TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient ./T*-emacs.sh
+	make test TEST_EMACS=my-emacs TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient
+
+Some tests may require a c compiler. You can choose the name and flags similarly
+to with emacs, e.g.
+
+     make test TEST_CC=gcc TEST_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
+
+Parallel Execution
+------------------
+If either the moreutils or GNU "parallel" utility is available all
+tests will be run in parallel.  If the NOTMUCH_TEST_SERIALIZE variable
+is non-null all tests will be executed sequentially.
+
+Quiet Execution
+---------------
+Normally, when new script starts and when test PASSes you get a message
+printed on screen. This printing can be disabled by setting the
+NOTMUCH_TEST_QUIET variable to a non-null value. Message on test
+failures and skips are still printed.
 
 Skipping Tests
 --------------
@@ -96,16 +130,40 @@ Note that some tests in the existing test suite rely on previous test
 items, so you cannot arbitrarily skip any test and expect the
 remaining tests to be unaffected.
 
+Currently we do not consider skipped tests as build failures. For
+maximum robustness, when setting up automated build processes, you
+should explicitly skip tests, rather than relying on notmuch's
+detection of missing prerequisites. In the future we may treat tests
+unable to run because of missing prerequisites, but not explicitly
+skipped by the user, as failures.
+
+Testing installed notmuch
+-------------------------
+
+Systems integrators (e.g. Linux distros) may wish to test an installed
+version of notmuch.  This can be done be running
+
+     $ NOTMUCH_TEST_INSTALLED=1 ./test/notmuch-test
+
+In this scenario the test suite does not assume a built tree, and in
+particular cannot rely on the output of 'configure'. You may want to
+set certain feature environment variables ('NOTMUCH_HAVE_*') directly
+if you know those apply to your installed notmuch). Consider also
+setting TERM=dumb if the value of TERM cannot be used (e.g. in a
+chroot with missing terminfo). Note that having a built tree may cause
+surprising/broken results for NOTMUCH_TEST_INSTALLED, so consider
+cleaning first.
+
 Writing Tests
 -------------
-The test script is written as a shell script.  It should start with
-the standard "#!/usr/bin/env bash" with copyright notices, and an
-assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
+The test script is written as a shell script. It is to be named as
+Tddd-testname.sh where 'ddd' is three digits and 'testname' the "bare"
+name of your test. Tests will be run in order the 'ddd' part determines.
+
+The test script should start with the standard "#!/usr/bin/env bash"
+and an assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
 
 	#!/usr/bin/env bash
-	#
-	# Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
-	#
 
 	test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
 
@@ -117,7 +175,7 @@ Source 'test-lib.sh'
 After assigning test_description, the test script should source
 test-lib.sh like this:
 
-	. ./test-lib.sh
+	. ./test-lib.sh || exit 1
 
 This test harness library does the following things:
 
@@ -147,16 +205,21 @@ Test harness library
 There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
 library for your script to use.
 
- test_expect_success <message> <script>
+ test_begin_subtest <message>
+
+   Set the test description message for a subsequent test_expect_*
+   invocation (see below).
+
+ test_expect_success <script>
 
-   This takes two strings as parameter, and evaluates the
+   This takes a string as parameter, and evaluates the
    <script>.  If it yields success, test is considered
-   successful.  <message> should state what it is testing.
+   successful.
 
- test_begin_subtest <message>
+ test_expect_code <code> <script>
 
-   Set the test description message for a subsequent test_expect_equal
-   invocation (see below).
+   This takes two strings as parameter, and evaluates the <script>.
+   If it yields <code> exit status, test is considered successful.
 
  test_subtest_known_broken
 
@@ -176,12 +239,19 @@ library for your script to use.
    will generate a failure and print the difference of the two
    strings.
 
- test_expect_equal_file <output> <expected>
+ test_expect_equal_file <file1> <file2>
+
+   Identical to test_expect_equal, except that <file1> and <file2>
+   are files instead of strings.  This is a much more robust method to
+   compare formatted textual information, since it also notices
+   whitespace and closing newline differences.
 
-   Identical to test_exepect_equal, except that <output> and
-   <expected> are files instead of strings.  This is a much more
-   robust method to compare formatted textual information, since it
-   also notices whitespace and closing newline differences.
+ test_expect_equal_json <output> <expected>
+
+   Identical to test_expect_equal, except that the two strings are
+   treated as JSON and canonicalized before equality testing.  This is
+   useful to abstract away from whitespace differences in the expected
+   output and that generated by running a notmuch command.
 
  test_debug <script>
 
@@ -202,6 +272,14 @@ library for your script to use.
    tests that may run in the same Emacs instance.  Use `let' instead
    so the scope of the changed variables is limited to a single test.
 
+ test_emacs_expect_t <emacs-lisp-expressions>
+
+  This function executes the provided emacs lisp script within
+  emacs in a manner similar to 'test_emacs'. The expressions should
+  return the value `t' to indicate that the test has passed. If the
+  test does not return `t' then it is considered failed and all data
+  returned by the test is reported to the tester.
+
  test_done
 
    Your test script must have test_done at the end.  Its purpose
@@ -245,3 +323,16 @@ variables which are useful in writing tests:
     generated script that should be called instead of notmuch to do
     the counting.  The notmuch_counter_value() function prints the
     current counter value.
+
+There are also functions which remove various environment-dependent
+values from notmuch output; these are useful to ensure that test
+results remain consistent across different machines.
+
+ notmuch_search_sanitize
+ notmuch_show_sanitize
+ notmuch_show_sanitize_all
+ notmuch_json_show_sanitize
+
+   All these functions should receive the text to be sanitized as the
+   input of a pipe, e.g.
+   output=`notmuch search "..." | notmuch_search_sanitize`