SARU (monkey)

saru is a testing library.

This file is just a dumpiing gorund for ideas at the moment as I build towards a proper devcelopment plan.

How do we test code? There are three types of tests...

• Regression tests
• Functional tests
• Unit tests

Other considerations are:

• Every test should be a single executable!
• Every test should be a single source file!
• The bits of the makefile for the test should be autogenerated from the source!
  • Some kind of metadata in the source file. Gotta be easy to specify or it wont get done.
  • Automagic dependency tracking of includes.
  • Tracking of library dependencies.
  • Warnings about directories without tests (unless something like a .notest exists? )

// SARU:RequiresLibrary FakeDummy
// SARU:TestName Dummy Test
// SARU:Tests That the tesing library works
// SARU:Expected pass

#include "TestUtils.h"
#include "dummy.h"

int main()
{
   bool ok = doSomething();
   if(!ok) return Test::Fail();
   return Test::Ok();
}

The tesing suite could be bsaed around a set of small tools that do simple jobs, with bigger tools built around these tools. This could be kind of like the idea behind git - with plumbing and poreclain.

Possible small tools include:

• extracting settings from source code.
• builing a makefile
• updating/tracking/retreiving library names
• tools to build, run and report on tests
• tools to analyse test results over time

First Cut:

We should aim to have a system that:

• can build and run one or more tests in a directory.
• can produce a test template file
• leaves no clutter in the tes directories ( hides it in a .test subdir? )
• provides a way to run all tests in a project.
• in the spirit of git all helpers will be called saru-xxx and callable through a wrapper script as "saru xxx args"

Later:

• Test templates could be named (eg "saru template c++" would get the c++ template...)