A basic guide to writing tests for Parrot

This is quick and dirty pointer to how tests for Parrot should be written. The testing system is liable to change in the future, but tests written following the guidelines below should be easy to port into a new test suite.

How to write a test

First, find an appropriate file in t/op/*.t (for basic ops) or t/pmc/*.t (for anything to do with PMCs). If there isn't an appropriate file, create one.

Near the top of each file, you'll see a line like:

use Parrot::Test tests => 8;

This sets up the test harness used to assemble and run the tests, and lets it know how many tests you plan to run. New tests should be added by:

  incrementing the number of planned tests.
  putting some code in like this:

	output_is(<<'CODE', <<'OUTPUT', "name for test");
		*** a big chunk of assembler, eg:
		print   1
		print   "\n" # you can even comment it if it's obscure
		end          # don't forget this...!
	CODE
	 *** what you expect the output of the chunk to be, eg.
	1
	OUTPUT

What a test should do

o

Probe the boundaries (including edge cases, errors thrown etc.) of whatever code they've just written. These should include potentially out of band input unless we decide that compilers should check for this themselves.

o

Are small and self contained, so that if their new feature breaks we can identify where and why quickly.

o

Are valid, essentially that they conform to the additonal documentation that accompanies the feature. You did write that as well, didn't you?

o

Are a chunk of assembler and a chunk of expected output.