prove
PROVE(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation PROVE(1)
NAME
prove - Run tests through a TAP harness.
USAGE
prove [options] [files or directories]
OPTIONS
Boolean options:
-v, --verbose Print all test lines.
-l, --lib Add ’lib’ to the path for your tests (-Ilib).
-b, --blib Add ’blib/lib’ and ’blib/arch’ to the path for your tests
-s, --shuffle Run the tests in random order.
-c, --color Colored test output (default).
--nocolor Do not color test output.
--count Show the X/Y test count when not verbose (default)
--nocount Disable the X/Y test count.
-D --dry Dry run. Show test that would have run.
--ext Set the extension for tests (default ’.t’)
-f, --failures Show failed tests.
-o, --comments Show comments.
--fork Fork to run harness in multiple processes.
--ignore-exit Ignore exit status from test scripts.
-m, --merge Merge test scripts’ STDERR with their STDOUT.
-r, --recurse Recursively descend into directories.
--reverse Run the tests in reverse order.
-q, --quiet Suppress some test output while running tests.
-Q, --QUIET Only print summary results.
-p, --parse Show full list of TAP parse errors, if any.
--directives Only show results with TODO or SKIP directives.
--timer Print elapsed time after each test.
--normalize Normalize TAP output in verbose output
-T Enable tainting checks.
-t Enable tainting warnings.
-W Enable fatal warnings.
-w Enable warnings.
-h, --help Display this help
-?, Display this help
-H, --man Longer manpage for prove
--norc Don’t process default .proverc
Options that take arguments:
-I Library paths to include.
-P Load plugin (searches App::Prove::Plugin::*.)
-M Load a module.
-e, --exec Interpreter to run the tests (’’ for compiled tests.)
--harness Define test harness to use. See TAP::Harness.
--formatter Result formatter to use. See TAP::Harness.
-a, --archive Store the resulting TAP in an archive file.
-j, --jobs N Run N test jobs in parallel (try 9.)
--state=opts Control prove’s persistent state.
--rc=rcfile Process options from rcfile
NOTES
If ~/.proverc or ./.proverc exist they will be read and any options
they contain processed before the command line options. Options in
.proverc are specified in the same way as command line options:
# .proverc
--state=hot,fast,save
-j9 --fork
Additional option files may be specified with the "--rc" option.
Default option file processing is disabled by the "--norc" option.
Under Windows and VMS the option file is named _proverc rather than
.proverc and is sought only in the current directory.
Reading from "STDIN"
If you have a list of tests (or URLs, or anything else you want to
test) in a file, you can add them to your tests by using a ’-’:
prove - < my_list_of_things_to_test.txt
See the "README" in the "examples" directory of this distribution.
Default Test Directory
If no files or directories are supplied, "prove" looks for all files
matching the pattern "t/*.t".
Colored Test Output
Colored test output is the default, but if output is not to a termi-
nal, color is disabled. You can override this by adding the "--color"
switch.
Color support requires Term::ANSIColor on Unix-like platforms and
Win32::Console windows. If the necessary module is not installed col-
ored output will not be available.
Exit Code
If the tests fail "prove" will exit with non-zero status.
Arguments to Tests
It is possible to supply arguments to tests. To do so separate them
from prove’s own arguments with the arisdottle, ’::’. For example
prove -v t/mytest.t :: --url http://example.com
would run t/mytest.t with the options ’--url http://example.com’.
When running multiple tests they will each receive the same arguments.
"--exec"
Normally you can just pass a list of Perl tests and the harness will
know how to execute them. However, if your tests are not written in
Perl or if you want all tests invoked exactly the same way, use the
"-e", or "--exec" switch:
prove --exec ’/usr/bin/ruby -w’ t/
prove --exec ’/usr/bin/perl -Tw -mstrict -Ilib’ t/
prove --exec ’/path/to/my/customer/exec’
"--merge"
If you need to make sure your diagnostics are displayed in the correct
order relative to test results you can use the "--merge" option to
merge the test scripts’ STDERR into their STDOUT.
This guarantees that STDOUT (where the test results appear) and STDOUT
(where the diagnostics appear) will stay in sync. The harness will
display any diagnostics your tests emit on STDERR.
Caveat: this is a bit of a kludge. In particular note that if anything
that appears on STDERR looks like a test result the test harness will
get confused. Use this option only if you understand the consequences
and can live with the risk.
"--state"
You can ask "prove" to remember the state of previous test runs and
select and/or order the tests to be run based on that saved state.
The "--state" switch requires an argument which must be a comma sepa-
rated list of one or more of the following options.
"last"
Run the same tests as the last time the state was saved. This
makes it possible, for example, to recreate the ordering of a
shuffled test.
# Run all tests in random order
$ prove -b --state=save --shuffle
# Run them again in the same order
$ prove -b --state=last
"failed"
Run only the tests that failed on the last run.
# Run all tests
$ prove -b --state=save
# Run failures
$ prove -b --state=failed
If you also specify the "save" option newly passing tests will be
excluded from subsequent runs.
# Repeat until no more failures
$ prove -b --state=failed,save
"passed"
Run only the passed tests from last time. Useful to make sure that
no new problems have been introduced.
"all"
Run all tests in normal order. Multple options may be specified,
so to run all tests with the failures from last time first:
$ prove -b --state=failed,all,save
"hot"
Run the tests that most recently failed first. The last failure
time of each test is stored. The "hot" option causes tests to be
run in most-recent- failure order.
$ prove -b --state=hot,save
Tests that have never failed will not be selected. To run all
tests with the most recently failed first use
$ prove -b --state=hot,all,save
This combination of options may also be specified thus
$ prove -b --state=adrian
"todo"
Run any tests with todos.
"slow"
Run the tests in slowest to fastest order. This is useful in con-
junction with the "-j" parallel testing switch to ensure that your
slowest tests start running first.
$ prove -b --state=slow -j9
"fast"
Run test tests in fastest to slowest order.
"new"
Run the tests in newest to oldest order based on the modification
times of the test scripts.
"old"
Run the tests in oldest to newest order.
"fresh"
Run those test scripts that have been modified since the last test
run.
"save"
Save the state on exit. The state is stored in a file called
.prove (_prove on Windows and VMS) in the current directory.
The "--state" switch may be used more than once.
$ prove -b --state=hot --state=all,save
@INC
prove introduces a separation between "options passed to the perl
which runs prove" and "options passed to the perl which runs tests";
this distinction is by design. Thus the perl which is running a test
starts with the default @INC. Additional library directories can be
added via the "PERL5LIB" environment variable, via -Ifoo in "PERL5OPT"
or via the "-Ilib" option to prove.
Taint Mode
Normally when a Perl program is run in taint mode the contents of the
"PERL5LIB" environment variable do not appear in @INC.
Because "PERL5LIB" is often used during testing to add build directo-
ries to @INC prove (actually TAP::Parser::Source::Perl) passes the
names of any directories found in "PERL5LIB" as -I switches. The net
effect of this is that "PERL5LIB" is honoured even when prove is run
in taint mode.
PLUGINS
Plugins can be loaded using the "-Pplugin" syntax, eg:
prove -PMyPlugin
This will search for a module named "App::Prove::Plugin::MyPlugin", or
failing that, "MyPlugin". If the plugin can’t be found, "prove" will
complain & exit.
You can pass arguments to your plugin by appending "=arg1,arg2,etc" to
the plugin name:
prove -PMyPlugin=fou,du,fafa
Please check individual plugin documentation for more details.
Available Plugins
For an up-to-date list of plugins available, please check CPAN:
<http://search.cpan.org/search?query=App%3A%3AProve+Plugin>
Writing Plugins
Please see "PLUGINS" in App::Prove.
perl v5.8.8 2009-05-05 PROVE(1)
