Re: autotest with libraries

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Martin,

* Martin Kalbfuß wrote on Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 01:12:44AM CEST:
> I try to build up a test suit for my library. I have a description for
> using autotest for a program. But haven't found anything about testing
> libraries. Are there any good descriptions or examples?

Examples for tests?  No idea.  The gnulib repository contains oodles of
tests.  Maybe looking at them helps you write them?

> Currently I only have
> 
> TESTS            = slltest
> check_PROGRAMS   = $(TESTS)
> slltest_SOURCES  = slltest.c
> slltest_INCLUDES = sll.h
> slltest_LDADD    = libsk.a
> 
> in my Makefile.am.

A minor lingo nit, "Autotest" is a different test suite driver, it comes
with Autoconf and is purely m4 and shell based:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/Using-Autotest.html>

What you're looking at is the simple test driver from Automake.
Incidentally, the Libtool package tests a library (libltdl) among other
things, and uses both Autotest and the simple driver from Automake.

If I were writing tests for a library, I'd be writing a bunch of small
programs as unit tests of library specifics, and maybe a larger one that
tries out more complex operations, and some shell scripts calling that
larger program with different options:

unittests = unit1 unit2 ...
scripttests = script1 script2 ...
check_PROGRAMS = $(unittests) large-prog ...
check_SCRIPTS = $(scripttests) helper-script ...
TESTS = $(unittests) $(scripttests)
LDADD = libsk.a

You should check out parallel-tests from Automake 1.11:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/automake/manual/html_node/Tests.html>

Cheers,
Ralf