man aegis test (1): run tests

SYNOPSIS

aegis -Test [ option... ][ name=value ][ file-name... ]
aegis -Test -INDependent [ option... ][ name=value ][ file-name... ]
aegis -Test -List [ option... ]
aegis -Test -Help

DESCRIPTION

The aegis -Test command is used to run tests. If no files are named, all relevant tests are run. By default both automatic and manual tests are run.

You may name directories on the command line, and all relevant tests in that directory tree in the change will be run. It is an error if there are no relevant tests.

Each architecture must be tested separately. This is because there may be subtle problems that are only revealed on some architectures. Some projects may also have different code for different architectures.

The status of the last test run is remembered so that tests are not run if there is no need. (This does not apply to -REGression tests, unfortunately.) Tests must be re-run if the test previously failed, if the test file has changed, if there has been a build, and for each architecture.

name=value

You can add name=value pairs to the command line, these will be passed unchanged to the test command. Usually on the end of the command line, but this can be changed in the project configuration file.

The -force option results in an implicit force=1 variable being added to the list of variable assignments, and thus added to the end of the command. This is of most use when using the batch_test_command filed of the project configuration file.

This may initially look like a development process end-run, allowing test scripts to be written so that they give all the right answers without actually doing anything. You have always been able to do this with environment variables, so this isn't anything new.

It is possible to get all of the variable assignments to turn into environment variables by putting $var at the start of the command, before the name of the shell, rather than at the default location at the end of the command.

File Name Interpretation

The aegis program will attempt to determine the project file names from the file names given on the command line. All file names are stored within aegis projects as relative to the root of the baseline directory tree. The development directory and the integration directory are shadows of this baseline directory, and so these relative names apply here, too. Files named on the command line are first converted to absolute paths if necessary. They are then compared with the baseline path, the development directory path, and the integration directory path, to determine a baseline-relative name. It is an error if the file named is outside one of these directory trees.

The -BAse_RElative option may be used to cause relative filenames to be interpreted as relative to the baseline path; absolute filenames will still be compared with the various paths in order to determine a baseline-relative name.

The relative_filename_preference in the user configuration file may be used to modify this default behavior. See aeuconf(5) for more information.

TEST PROCESS

Each change is required to be accompanied by tests, and those tests are required to be run against the built development directory, and they must pass. This ensures that new functionality is accompanied by tests to verify its correctness, and bug fixes are accompanied by tests which confirm that the bug has been fixed.

Regression Tests

Tests are treated as any other source file, and are maintained in the baseline and history with all other source files. The tests which must accompany every change accumulate in the project baseline, providing a definition of correct function for the baseline. These accumulated tests may be executed using an "aegis -REGression" command, to verify that the project will not "regress" as a result of a change.

Baseline Tests

Bug fixes are required to have their tests fail against the project baseline (in contrast to the development directory). This ensures that the test actually demonstrates the bug in the baseline, as well as demonstrating that it is fixed by the change. New functionality trivially fails against the baseline, and so aegis does not attempt to guess if a test is a bug fix test or new functionality test, it simply requires tests to fail against the baseline.

This requirement applies both to new tests being created by a change and also to tests which have been copied into a change for modification.

Reviewing Tests

Reviewers may be confident that aegis has enforced the test requirements; that a change must have tests, that the change must build, that the tests pass against the development directory, and that the tests fail against the baseline. These conditions are enforced by aede(1) and the change will not be advanced to the being reviewed state until these conditions are met. Reviewers should thus review tests for completeness of coverage of the code in the change, and insensitivity to changes in the execution environment (e.g. not date sensitive). Reviewers should also use "aegis -list change_details" to verify that a change does or does not have testing exemptions.

Exemptions

Various test exemptions may be granted by project administrators, see aepa(1) and aepattr(5) for more information. Copying tests into a change, or adding new tests to a change, may cancel those exemptions.

TEST COMMAND CONFIGURATION

The command used to execute tests is defined by the test_command field in the project configuration file (see aepconf(5) for more information), this defaults to using the Bourne shell if not set. The current directory will be the top of the appropriate directory tree. If tests require temporary files, they should create them in /tmp, as a test cannot expect to have write permission in the current directory.

If you want to use a more sophisticated test engine, rather than a simple shell script, but this test engine does not return result codes suitable for use with aegis, you could wrap it in a shell script which re-writes the exit status into the values aegis expects. You could also achieve the same results by writing a more complex test_command in the project config file.

It is also possible to write test commands which are able to test more than one file at once. This is controlled by the batch_test_command field of the project config file. In this case, the ${output} substitution indicates the name of a file the test command must create, in aetest(5) format, to contain the results of the tests run. This is often used on systems with multiple CPUs or the ability to distribute jobs across several computers on a network.

Substitutions

All of the aesub(5) substitutions are available in the test commands. Some of them are of particular note:

ARCHitecture: This substitution is replaced by the name of the architecture to be tested.
Search_Path: This substitution is replaced by a colon separated list of absolute paths to search when looking for test support files.
Search_Path_Executable: This substitution is replaced by a colon separated list of absolute paths to search when looking for executable support files (library files and sub-commands).

Most of the time $Search_Path_Executable are exactly the same. However, during "aegis -t -bl" they will be different, with $Seach_Path starting at the development directory (the test being run) and $Seach_Path_Executable starting at the baseline (the executable being run).

Test Result Codes

As each test is run (via the test_command field in the project config file), aegis determines whether the test succeeded or failed by looking at its exit status. This exit status is mostly as expected for UNIX commands.

Success: A test should exit 0 to indicate success, i.e. that the specific function under test worked as expected.
Failure: A test should exit 1 to indicate failure, i.e. that the specific function under test did not work as expected.
No Result: A test should exit 2 to indicate no result, i.e. that the specific function under test could not be exercised because something else went wrong. For example, running out of disk space when creating the test input files in the /tmp directory.
Skipped: A test should exit 77 to indicate that it was skipped. This is usually to do with the current architecture not being meaningful. Whenever possible, use "No Result" instead. (The value was chosen for compatibility with other test systems.)

Actually, any exit code other than 0, 1 or 77 will be interpreted as "no result". However, always using 0, 1, 2 or 77 means that if a new result code is required by a later release of Aegis your existing tests will continue to work.

TEST CORRELATIONS

The "aegis -Test -SUGgest" command may be used to have aegis suggest suitable regression tests for your change, based on the source files in your change. This automatically focuses testing effort to relevant tests, reducing the number of regression tests necessary to be confident that you have not introduced a bug.

The test correlations are generated by the "aegis -Integrate_Pass" command, which associates each test in the change with each source file in the change. Thus, each source file accumulates a list of tests which have been associated with it in the past. This is not as exact as code coverage analysis, but is a reasonable approximation in practice.

The aecp(1) and aenf(1) commands are used to associate files with a change. While they do not actively perform the association, these are the files used by aeipass(1) and aet(1) to determine which source files are associated with which tests.

Test Correlation Accuracy

Assuming that the testing correlations are accurate and that the tests are evenly distributed across the function space, there will be a less than 1/number chance that a relevant test has not been run by the "aegis -Test -SUGgest number" command. A small amount of noise is added to the test weighting, so that unexpected things are sometimes tested, and the same tests are not run every time.

Test correlation accuracy can be improved by ensuring that:

Each change should be strongly focused, with no gratuitous file inclusions. This avoids spurious correlations.
Each item of new functionality should be added in an individual change, rather than several together. This strongly correlates tests with functionality.
Each bug should be fixed in an individual change, rather than several together. This strongly correlates tests with functionality.
Test correlations will be lost if files are moved. This is because correlations are by name.

The best way for tests to correlate accurately with source files is when a change contains a test and exactly those files relating to the functionality under test. Too many spurious files will weaken the usefulness of the testing correlations.

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

-AUTOmatic: This option may be used to specify automatic tests. Automatic tests require no human assistance.
-BaseLine: This option may be used to specify that the project baseline is the subject of the command.
-BAse_RElative: This option may be used to cause relative filenames to be considered relative to the base of the source tree. See aeuconf(5) for the corresponding user preference.
-CUrrent_RElative: This option may be used to cause relative filenames to be considered relative to the current directory. This is usually the default. See aeuconf(5) for the corresponding user preference.
-Change number: This option may be used to specify a particular change within a project. See aegis(1) for a complete description of this option.
-FOrce: This option may be used to specify that all tests should be run, even if the status of the last test run indicates that there is no need to run a specific test.
-Help: This option may be used to obtain more information about how to use the aegis program.
-INDependent: This option is used to specify that the test is to be run independent of any particular change. If no tests are named, all tests in the baseline will be run.
-List: This option may be used to obtain a list of suitable subjects for this command. The list may be more general than expected.
-MANual: This option may be used to specify manual tests. Manual tests require some human intervention, e.g.: confirmation of some screen behavior (X11, for instance), or some user action, "unplug ethernet cable now".
-Not_Logging: This option may be used to disable the automatic logging of output and errors to a file. This is often useful when several aegis commands are combined in a shell script.
-PErsevere: This option may be used to specify that all tests should be run, even if some fail. Defaults to the user's persevere_preference if not specified, see aeuconf(5) for more information.
-No_PErsevere: This option may be used to specify that the test run should stop after the first failure. Defaults to the user's persevere_preference if not specified, see aeuconf(5) for more information.
-Project name: This option may be used to select the project of interest. When no -Project option is specified, the AEGIS_PROJECT environment variable is consulted. If that does not exist, the user's $HOME/.aegisrc file is examined for a default project field (see aeuconf(5) for more information). If that does not exist, when the user is only working on changes within a single project, the project name defaults to that project. Otherwise, it is an error.
-PROGress: This option may be used to specify that progress messages should be issued before each test run or before each batch test run in case batch_test_command field specified in project config file (see aeuconf(5) for more information).
-No_PROGress: This option may be used to specify that progress messages should be suppressed. This is the default.
-REGression: This option is used to specify that the regression test suite is to be run. The regression test suite consists of all tests in the baseline which do not appear in the change. It is an error if there are no regression tests. You may not name tests on the command line when using the -REGression option. You may name individual tests to be run on the command line, without using the -REGression option; if they are not part of the change, the tests of the same name in the baseline will be run.
-SUGgest [ number ]: The "aegis -Integrate_Pass" command collects test correlation statistics when changes are integrated. This option may be used to request that aegis suggest which tests should be run, using these testing correlations. If no number is specified, 10 tests will be suggested. This option implies the -REGression option.
-SUGgest_Limit minutes: This option may be used to limit the number of tests to a certain number of minutes. They will be run from most relevant to least relevant.
-SUGgest_Noise number: This option may be used to control the amount of noise injected into the test selection performed by the -SUGgest option. The number is a percentage of noise to be injected. Defaults to 10 if not specified. The injection of noise ensures that a variety of tests are run on subsequent runs, and also some from left-field as a sanity check.
-TERse: This option may be used to cause listings to produce the bare minimum of information. It is usually useful for shell scripts.
-Verbose: This option may be used to cause aegis to produce more output. By default aegis only produces output on errors. When used with the -List option this option causes column headings to be added.
-Wait: This option may be used to require Aegis commands to wait for access locks, if they cannot be obtained immediately. Defaults to the user's lock_wait_preference if not specified, see aeuconf(5) for more information.
-No_Wait: This option may be used to require Aegis commands to emit a fatal error if access locks cannot be obtained immediately. Defaults to the user's lock_wait_preference if not specified, see aeuconf(5) for more information.

See also aegis(1) for options common to all aegis commands.

All options may be abbreviated; the abbreviation is documented as the upper case letters, all lower case letters and underscores (_) are optional. You must use consecutive sequences of optional letters.

All options are case insensitive, you may type them in upper case or lower case or a combination of both, case is not important.

For example: the arguments "-project, "-PROJ" and "-p" are all interpreted to mean the -Project option. The argument "-prj" will not be understood, because consecutive optional characters were not supplied.

Options and other command line arguments may be mixed arbitrarily on the command line, after the function selectors.

The GNU long option names are understood. Since all option names for aegis are long, this means ignoring the extra leading '-'. The "--option=value" convention is also understood.

RECOMMENDED ALIAS

The recommended alias for this command is

csh%    alias aet 'aegis -t \!* -v'
sh$     aet(){aegis -t "$@" -v}

ERRORS

It is an error if the change is not in one of the being developed or being integrated states.
It is an error if the change is not assigned to the current user.
It is an error if your have no relevant tests and no relevant exemption.

EXIT STATUS

The aegis command will exit with a status of 1 on any error. The aegis command will only exit with a status of 0 if there are no errors.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

See aegis(1) for a list of environment variables which may affect this command. See aepconf(5) for the project configuration file's project_specific field for how to set environment variables for all commands executed by Aegis.

COPYRIGHT

The aegis program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the 'aegis -VERSion License' command. This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details use the 'aegis -VERSion License' command.

AUTHOR

Peter Miller	E-Mail:	[email protected]
`/\/\*`	WWW:	http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/