X-Git-Url: https://git.notmuchmail.org/git?p=notmuch;a=blobdiff_plain;f=test%2FREADME;h=e54e36b795e852e536dab96256420edbfee84368;hp=43656a35baf9f9bc5e5d41aca2b65c8e4e763450;hb=23b8ed610a13802f0afa5fa70bc8faa04cf48a7f;hpb=d43f6c00b351424e903c2f2b71c34bc5902b467e

diff --git a/test/README b/test/README
index 43656a35..e54e36b7 100644
--- a/test/README
+++ b/test/README
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ The following command-line options are available when running tests:
 	run the tests with this option in parallel.
 
 --root=<dir>::
-	This runs the testsuites specified under a seperate directory.
+	This runs the testsuites specified under a separate directory.
 	However, caution is advised, as not all tests are maintained
 	with this relocation in mind, so some tests may behave
 	differently.
@@ -64,17 +64,38 @@ The following command-line options are available when running tests:
 	Pointing this argument at a tmpfs filesystem can improve the
 	speed of the test suite for some users.
 
+Certain tests require precomputed databases to complete. You can fetch these
+databases with
+
+	make download-test-databases
+
+If you do not download the test databases, the relevant tests will be
+skipped.
+
 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 TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient make test
+	TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs TEST_EMACSCLIENT=my-emacsclient ./emacs
+	make test TEST_EMACS=my-special-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"
+
+Quiet Execution
+---------------
 
-	TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs make test
-	TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs ./emacs
-	make test TEST_EMACS=my-special-emacs
+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
 --------------
@@ -96,6 +117,13 @@ 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 explicitely 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 explicitely
+skipped by the user, as failures.
+
 Writing Tests
 -------------
 The test script is written as a shell script.  It should start with
@@ -117,7 +145,7 @@ 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:
 
@@ -176,12 +204,19 @@ 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.
+
+ test_expect_equal_json <output> <expected>
 
-   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.
+   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>
 
@@ -253,3 +288,16 @@ 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`