view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

t/data/generate/c-tap-harness/output/readme-md  view on Meta::CPAN

# C TAP Harness

Copyright 2000-2001, 2004, 2006-2016 Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.
Copyright 2006-2009, 2011-2013 The Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Junior University.  This software is distributed under a
BSD-style license.  Please see the section [License](#license) below for
more information.

## Blurb

C TAP Harness is a pure-C implementation of TAP, the Test Anything
Protocol.  TAP is the text-based protocol used by Perl's test suite.  This
package provides a harness similar to Perl's Test::Harness for running
tests, with some additional features useful for test suites in packages
that use Autoconf and Automake, and C and shell libraries to make writing
TAP-compliant test programs easier.

## Description

This package started as the runtests program I wrote for INN in 2000 to
serve as the basis for a new test suite using a test protocol similar to
that used for Perl modules.  When I started maintaining additional C
packages, I adopted runtests for the test suite driver of those as well,
resulting in further improvements but also separate copies of the same
program in different distributions.  The C TAP Harness distribution merges
all the various versions into a single code base that all my packages can
pull from.

C TAP Harness provides a full TAP specification driver (apart from a few
possible edge cases) and has additional special features for supporting
builds outside the source directory.  It's mostly useful for packages
using Autoconf and Automake and because it doesn't assume or require Perl.

The runtests program can be built with knowledge of the source and build
directory and pass that knowledge on to test scripts, and will search for
test scripts in both the source and build directory.  This makes it easier
for packages using Autoconf and Automake and supporting out-of-tree builds
to build some test programs, ship others, and run them all regardless of
what tree they're in.  It also makes it easier for test cases to find
their supporting files when they run.

Also included in this package are C and shell libraries that provide
utility functions for writing test scripts that use TAP to report results.
The C library also provides a variety of utility functions useful for test
programs running as part of an Automake-built package: finding test data
files, creating temporary files, reporting output from external programs
running in the background, and similar common problems.

## Requirements

C TAP Harness requires a C compiler to build.  Any ISO C89 or later C
compiler on a system supporting the Single UNIX Specification, version 3
(SUSv3) should be sufficient.  This should not be a problem on any modern
system.  The test suite and shell library require a Bourne-compatible
shell.  Outside of the test suite, C TAP Harness has no other
prerequisites or requirements.

To run the test suite, you will need Perl plus the Perl module Test::More,
which comes with Perl 5.8 or later.  The following additional Perl modules
will be used by the test suite if present:

* Test::Pod
* Test::Spelling

All are available on CPAN.  Those tests will be skipped if the modules are
not available.

To bootstrap from a Git checkout, or if you change the Automake files and
need to regenerate Makefile.in, you will need Automake 1.11 or later.  For
bootstrap or if you change configure.ac or any of the m4 files it includes
and need to regenerate configure or config.h.in, you will need Autoconf
2.64 or later.  Perl is also required to generate manual pages from a
fresh Git checkout.

## Building

You can build C TAP Harness with the standard commands:

```
    ./configure
    make
```

If you are building from a Git clone, first run `./bootstrap` in the
source directory to generate the build files.  Building outside of the
source directory is also supported, if you wish, by creating an empty
directory and then running configure with the correct relative path.

Pass `--enable-silent-rules` to configure for a quieter build (similar to
the Linux kernel).  Use `make warnings` instead of `make` to build with
full GCC compiler warnings (requires either GCC or Clang and may require a
relatively current version of the compiler).

Installing C TAP Harness is not normally done.  Instead, see the section
on using the harness below.

## Testing

C TAP Harness comes with a test suite, which you can run after building
with:

```
    make check
```

If a test fails, you can run a single test with verbose output via: