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   1Core GIT Tests
   2==============
   3
   4This directory holds many test scripts for core GIT tools.  The
   5first part of this short document describes how to run the tests
   6and read their output.
   7
   8When fixing the tools or adding enhancements, you are strongly
   9encouraged to add tests in this directory to cover what you are
  10trying to fix or enhance.  The later part of this short document
  11describes how your test scripts should be organized.
  12
  13
  14Running Tests
  15-------------
  16
  17The easiest way to run tests is to say "make".  This runs all
  18the tests.
  19
  20    *** t0000-basic.sh ***
  21    ok 1 - .git/objects should be empty after git init in an empty repo.
  22    ok 2 - .git/objects should have 3 subdirectories.
  23    ok 3 - success is reported like this
  24    ...
  25    ok 43 - very long name in the index handled sanely
  26    # fixed 1 known breakage(s)
  27    # still have 1 known breakage(s)
  28    # passed all remaining 42 test(s)
  29    1..43
  30    *** t0001-init.sh ***
  31    ok 1 - plain
  32    ok 2 - plain with GIT_WORK_TREE
  33    ok 3 - plain bare
  34
  35Since the tests all output TAP (see http://testanything.org) they can
  36be run with any TAP harness. Here's an example of parallel testing
  37powered by a recent version of prove(1):
  38
  39    $ prove --timer --jobs 15 ./t[0-9]*.sh
  40    [19:17:33] ./t0005-signals.sh ................................... ok       36 ms
  41    [19:17:33] ./t0022-crlf-rename.sh ............................... ok       69 ms
  42    [19:17:33] ./t0024-crlf-archive.sh .............................. ok      154 ms
  43    [19:17:33] ./t0004-unwritable.sh ................................ ok      289 ms
  44    [19:17:33] ./t0002-gitfile.sh ................................... ok      480 ms
  45    ===(     102;0  25/?  6/?  5/?  16/?  1/?  4/?  2/?  1/?  3/?  1... )===
  46
  47prove and other harnesses come with a lot of useful options. The
  48--state option in particular is very useful:
  49
  50    # Repeat until no more failures
  51    $ prove -j 15 --state=failed,save ./t[0-9]*.sh
  52
  53You can give DEFAULT_TEST_TARGET=prove on the make command (or define it
  54in config.mak) to cause "make test" to run tests under prove.
  55GIT_PROVE_OPTS can be used to pass additional options, e.g.
  56
  57    $ make DEFAULT_TEST_TARGET=prove GIT_PROVE_OPTS='--timer --jobs 16' test
  58
  59You can also run each test individually from command line, like this:
  60
  61    $ sh ./t3010-ls-files-killed-modified.sh
  62    ok 1 - git update-index --add to add various paths.
  63    ok 2 - git ls-files -k to show killed files.
  64    ok 3 - validate git ls-files -k output.
  65    ok 4 - git ls-files -m to show modified files.
  66    ok 5 - validate git ls-files -m output.
  67    # passed all 5 test(s)
  68    1..5
  69
  70You can pass --verbose (or -v), --debug (or -d), and --immediate
  71(or -i) command line argument to the test, or by setting GIT_TEST_OPTS
  72appropriately before running "make".
  73
  74-v::
  75--verbose::
  76        This makes the test more verbose.  Specifically, the
  77        command being run and their output if any are also
  78        output.
  79
  80--verbose-only=<pattern>::
  81        Like --verbose, but the effect is limited to tests with
  82        numbers matching <pattern>.  The number matched against is
  83        simply the running count of the test within the file.
  84
  85-d::
  86--debug::
  87        This may help the person who is developing a new test.
  88        It causes the command defined with test_debug to run.
  89        The "trash" directory (used to store all temporary data
  90        during testing) is not deleted even if there are no
  91        failed tests so that you can inspect its contents after
  92        the test finished.
  93
  94-i::
  95--immediate::
  96        This causes the test to immediately exit upon the first
  97        failed test. Cleanup commands requested with
  98        test_when_finished are not executed if the test failed,
  99        in order to keep the state for inspection by the tester
 100        to diagnose the bug.
 101
 102-l::
 103--long-tests::
 104        This causes additional long-running tests to be run (where
 105        available), for more exhaustive testing.
 106
 107-r::
 108--run=<test-selector>::
 109        Run only the subset of tests indicated by
 110        <test-selector>.  See section "Skipping Tests" below for
 111        <test-selector> syntax.
 112
 113--valgrind=<tool>::
 114        Execute all Git binaries under valgrind tool <tool> and exit
 115        with status 126 on errors (just like regular tests, this will
 116        only stop the test script when running under -i).
 117
 118        Since it makes no sense to run the tests with --valgrind and
 119        not see any output, this option implies --verbose.  For
 120        convenience, it also implies --tee.
 121
 122        <tool> defaults to 'memcheck', just like valgrind itself.
 123        Other particularly useful choices include 'helgrind' and
 124        'drd', but you may use any tool recognized by your valgrind
 125        installation.
 126
 127        As a special case, <tool> can be 'memcheck-fast', which uses
 128        memcheck but disables --track-origins.  Use this if you are
 129        running tests in bulk, to see if there are _any_ memory
 130        issues.
 131
 132        Note that memcheck is run with the option --leak-check=no,
 133        as the git process is short-lived and some errors are not
 134        interesting. In order to run a single command under the same
 135        conditions manually, you should set GIT_VALGRIND to point to
 136        the 't/valgrind/' directory and use the commands under
 137        't/valgrind/bin/'.
 138
 139--valgrind-only=<pattern>::
 140        Like --valgrind, but the effect is limited to tests with
 141        numbers matching <pattern>.  The number matched against is
 142        simply the running count of the test within the file.
 143
 144--tee::
 145        In addition to printing the test output to the terminal,
 146        write it to files named 't/test-results/$TEST_NAME.out'.
 147        As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
 148        run the tests with this option in parallel.
 149
 150--with-dashes::
 151        By default tests are run without dashed forms of
 152        commands (like git-commit) in the PATH (it only uses
 153        wrappers from ../bin-wrappers).  Use this option to include
 154        the build directory (..) in the PATH, which contains all
 155        the dashed forms of commands.  This option is currently
 156        implied by other options like --valgrind and
 157        GIT_TEST_INSTALLED.
 158
 159--root=<directory>::
 160        Create "trash" directories used to store all temporary data during
 161        testing under <directory>, instead of the t/ directory.
 162        Using this option with a RAM-based filesystem (such as tmpfs)
 163        can massively speed up the test suite.
 164
 165You can also set the GIT_TEST_INSTALLED environment variable to
 166the bindir of an existing git installation to test that installation.
 167You still need to have built this git sandbox, from which various
 168test-* support programs, templates, and perl libraries are used.
 169If your installed git is incomplete, it will silently test parts of
 170your built version instead.
 171
 172When using GIT_TEST_INSTALLED, you can also set GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH to
 173override the location of the dashed-form subcommands (what
 174GIT_EXEC_PATH would be used for during normal operation).
 175GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH defaults to `$GIT_TEST_INSTALLED/git --exec-path`.
 176
 177
 178Skipping Tests
 179--------------
 180
 181In some environments, certain tests have no way of succeeding
 182due to platform limitation, such as lack of 'unzip' program, or
 183filesystem that do not allow arbitrary sequence of non-NUL bytes
 184as pathnames.
 185
 186You should be able to say something like
 187
 188    $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS=t9200.8 sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh
 189
 190and even:
 191
 192    $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS='t[0-4]??? t91?? t9200.8' make
 193
 194to omit such tests.  The value of the environment variable is a
 195SP separated list of patterns that tells which tests to skip,
 196and either can match the "t[0-9]{4}" part to skip the whole
 197test, or t[0-9]{4} followed by ".$number" to say which
 198particular test to skip.
 199
 200For an individual test suite --run could be used to specify that
 201only some tests should be run or that some tests should be
 202excluded from a run.
 203
 204The argument for --run is a list of individual test numbers or
 205ranges with an optional negation prefix that define what tests in
 206a test suite to include in the run.  A range is two numbers
 207separated with a dash and matches a range of tests with both ends
 208been included.  You may omit the first or the second number to
 209mean "from the first test" or "up to the very last test"
 210respectively.
 211
 212Optional prefix of '!' means that the test or a range of tests
 213should be excluded from the run.
 214
 215If --run starts with an unprefixed number or range the initial
 216set of tests to run is empty. If the first item starts with '!'
 217all the tests are added to the initial set.  After initial set is
 218determined every test number or range is added or excluded from
 219the set one by one, from left to right.
 220
 221Individual numbers or ranges could be separated either by a space
 222or a comma.
 223
 224For example, to run only tests up to a specific test (21), one
 225could do this:
 226
 227    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-21'
 228
 229or this:
 230
 231    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-21'
 232
 233Common case is to run several setup tests (1, 2, 3) and then a
 234specific test (21) that relies on that setup:
 235
 236    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1 2 3 21'
 237
 238or:
 239
 240    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run=1,2,3,21
 241
 242or:
 243
 244    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-3 21'
 245
 246As noted above, the test set is built going though items left to
 247right, so this:
 248
 249    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-4 !3'
 250
 251will run tests 1, 2, and 4.  Items that comes later have higher
 252precendence.  It means that this:
 253
 254    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!3 1-4'
 255
 256would just run tests from 1 to 4, including 3.
 257
 258You may use negation with ranges.  The following will run all
 259test in the test suite except from 7 up to 11:
 260
 261    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!7-11'
 262
 263Some tests in a test suite rely on the previous tests performing
 264certain actions, specifically some tests are designated as
 265"setup" test, so you cannot _arbitrarily_ disable one test and
 266expect the rest to function correctly.
 267
 268--run is mostly useful when you want to focus on a specific test
 269and know what setup is needed for it.  Or when you want to run
 270everything up to a certain test.
 271
 272
 273Naming Tests
 274------------
 275
 276The test files are named as:
 277
 278        tNNNN-commandname-details.sh
 279
 280where N is a decimal digit.
 281
 282First digit tells the family:
 283
 284        0 - the absolute basics and global stuff
 285        1 - the basic commands concerning database
 286        2 - the basic commands concerning the working tree
 287        3 - the other basic commands (e.g. ls-files)
 288        4 - the diff commands
 289        5 - the pull and exporting commands
 290        6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
 291        7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
 292        8 - the porcelainish commands concerning forensics
 293        9 - the git tools
 294
 295Second digit tells the particular command we are testing.
 296
 297Third digit (optionally) tells the particular switch or group of switches
 298we are testing.
 299
 300If you create files under t/ directory (i.e. here) that is not
 301the top-level test script, never name the file to match the above
 302pattern.  The Makefile here considers all such files as the
 303top-level test script and tries to run all of them.  Care is
 304especially needed if you are creating a common test library
 305file, similar to test-lib.sh, because such a library file may
 306not be suitable for standalone execution.
 307
 308
 309Writing Tests
 310-------------
 311
 312The test script is written as a shell script.  It should start
 313with the standard "#!/bin/sh" with copyright notices, and an
 314assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
 315
 316        #!/bin/sh
 317        #
 318        # Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
 319        #
 320
 321        test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
 322
 323        This test registers the following structure in the cache
 324        and tries to run git-ls-files with option --frotz.'
 325
 326
 327Source 'test-lib.sh'
 328--------------------
 329
 330After assigning test_description, the test script should source
 331test-lib.sh like this:
 332
 333        . ./test-lib.sh
 334
 335This test harness library does the following things:
 336
 337 - If the script is invoked with command line argument --help
 338   (or -h), it shows the test_description and exits.
 339
 340 - Creates an empty test directory with an empty .git/objects database
 341   and chdir(2) into it.  This directory is 't/trash
 342   directory.$test_name_without_dotsh', with t/ subject to change by
 343   the --root option documented above.
 344
 345 - Defines standard test helper functions for your scripts to
 346   use.  These functions are designed to make all scripts behave
 347   consistently when command line arguments --verbose (or -v),
 348   --debug (or -d), and --immediate (or -i) is given.
 349
 350Do's, don'ts & things to keep in mind
 351-------------------------------------
 352
 353Here are a few examples of things you probably should and shouldn't do
 354when writing tests.
 355
 356Do:
 357
 358 - Put all code inside test_expect_success and other assertions.
 359
 360   Even code that isn't a test per se, but merely some setup code
 361   should be inside a test assertion.
 362
 363 - Chain your test assertions
 364
 365   Write test code like this:
 366
 367        git merge foo &&
 368        git push bar &&
 369        test ...
 370
 371   Instead of:
 372
 373        git merge hla
 374        git push gh
 375        test ...
 376
 377   That way all of the commands in your tests will succeed or fail. If
 378   you must ignore the return value of something, consider using a
 379   helper function (e.g. use sane_unset instead of unset, in order
 380   to avoid unportable return value for unsetting a variable that was
 381   already unset), or prepending the command with test_might_fail or
 382   test_must_fail.
 383
 384 - Check the test coverage for your tests. See the "Test coverage"
 385   below.
 386
 387   Don't blindly follow test coverage metrics; if a new function you added
 388   doesn't have any coverage, then you're probably doing something wrong,
 389   but having 100% coverage doesn't necessarily mean that you tested
 390   everything.
 391
 392   Tests that are likely to smoke out future regressions are better
 393   than tests that just inflate the coverage metrics.
 394
 395 - When a test checks for an absolute path that a git command generated,
 396   construct the expected value using $(pwd) rather than $PWD,
 397   $TEST_DIRECTORY, or $TRASH_DIRECTORY. It makes a difference on
 398   Windows, where the shell (MSYS bash) mangles absolute path names.
 399   For details, see the commit message of 4114156ae9.
 400
 401Don't:
 402
 403 - exit() within a <script> part.
 404
 405   The harness will catch this as a programming error of the test.
 406   Use test_done instead if you need to stop the tests early (see
 407   "Skipping tests" below).
 408
 409 - use '! git cmd' when you want to make sure the git command exits
 410   with failure in a controlled way by calling "die()".  Instead,
 411   use 'test_must_fail git cmd'.  This will signal a failure if git
 412   dies in an unexpected way (e.g. segfault).
 413
 414   On the other hand, don't use test_must_fail for running regular
 415   platform commands; just use '! cmd'.
 416
 417 - use perl without spelling it as "$PERL_PATH". This is to help our
 418   friends on Windows where the platform Perl often adds CR before
 419   the end of line, and they bundle Git with a version of Perl that
 420   does not do so, whose path is specified with $PERL_PATH. Note that we
 421   provide a "perl" function which uses $PERL_PATH under the hood, so
 422   you do not need to worry when simply running perl in the test scripts
 423   (but you do, for example, on a shebang line or in a sub script
 424   created via "write_script").
 425
 426 - use sh without spelling it as "$SHELL_PATH", when the script can
 427   be misinterpreted by broken platform shell (e.g. Solaris).
 428
 429 - chdir around in tests.  It is not sufficient to chdir to
 430   somewhere and then chdir back to the original location later in
 431   the test, as any intermediate step can fail and abort the test,
 432   causing the next test to start in an unexpected directory.  Do so
 433   inside a subshell if necessary.
 434
 435 - Break the TAP output
 436
 437   The raw output from your test may be interpreted by a TAP harness. TAP
 438   harnesses will ignore everything they don't know about, but don't step
 439   on their toes in these areas:
 440
 441   - Don't print lines like "$x..$y" where $x and $y are integers.
 442
 443   - Don't print lines that begin with "ok" or "not ok".
 444
 445   TAP harnesses expect a line that begins with either "ok" and "not
 446   ok" to signal a test passed or failed (and our harness already
 447   produces such lines), so your script shouldn't emit such lines to
 448   their output.
 449
 450   You can glean some further possible issues from the TAP grammar
 451   (see http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TAP::Parser::Grammar#TAP_Grammar)
 452   but the best indication is to just run the tests with prove(1),
 453   it'll complain if anything is amiss.
 454
 455Keep in mind:
 456
 457 - Inside <script> part, the standard output and standard error
 458   streams are discarded, and the test harness only reports "ok" or
 459   "not ok" to the end user running the tests. Under --verbose, they
 460   are shown to help debugging the tests.
 461
 462
 463Skipping tests
 464--------------
 465
 466If you need to skip tests you should do so by using the three-arg form
 467of the test_* functions (see the "Test harness library" section
 468below), e.g.:
 469
 470    test_expect_success PERL 'I need Perl' '
 471        perl -e "hlagh() if unf_unf()"
 472    '
 473
 474The advantage of skipping tests like this is that platforms that don't
 475have the PERL and other optional dependencies get an indication of how
 476many tests they're missing.
 477
 478If the test code is too hairy for that (i.e. does a lot of setup work
 479outside test assertions) you can also skip all remaining tests by
 480setting skip_all and immediately call test_done:
 481
 482        if ! test_have_prereq PERL
 483        then
 484            skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
 485            test_done
 486        fi
 487
 488The string you give to skip_all will be used as an explanation for why
 489the test was skipped.
 490
 491End with test_done
 492------------------
 493
 494Your script will be a sequence of tests, using helper functions
 495from the test harness library.  At the end of the script, call
 496'test_done'.
 497
 498
 499Test harness library
 500--------------------
 501
 502There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
 503library for your script to use.
 504
 505 - test_expect_success [<prereq>] <message> <script>
 506
 507   Usually takes two strings as parameters, and evaluates the
 508   <script>.  If it yields success, test is considered
 509   successful.  <message> should state what it is testing.
 510
 511   Example:
 512
 513        test_expect_success \
 514            'git-write-tree should be able to write an empty tree.' \
 515            'tree=$(git-write-tree)'
 516
 517   If you supply three parameters the first will be taken to be a
 518   prerequisite; see the test_set_prereq and test_have_prereq
 519   documentation below:
 520
 521        test_expect_success TTY 'git --paginate rev-list uses a pager' \
 522            ' ... '
 523
 524   You can also supply a comma-separated list of prerequisites, in the
 525   rare case where your test depends on more than one:
 526
 527        test_expect_success PERL,PYTHON 'yo dawg' \
 528            ' test $(perl -E 'print eval "1 +" . qx[python -c "print 2"]') == "4" '
 529
 530 - test_expect_failure [<prereq>] <message> <script>
 531
 532   This is NOT the opposite of test_expect_success, but is used
 533   to mark a test that demonstrates a known breakage.  Unlike
 534   the usual test_expect_success tests, which say "ok" on
 535   success and "FAIL" on failure, this will say "FIXED" on
 536   success and "still broken" on failure.  Failures from these
 537   tests won't cause -i (immediate) to stop.
 538
 539   Like test_expect_success this function can optionally use a three
 540   argument invocation with a prerequisite as the first argument.
 541
 542 - test_debug <script>
 543
 544   This takes a single argument, <script>, and evaluates it only
 545   when the test script is started with --debug command line
 546   argument.  This is primarily meant for use during the
 547   development of a new test script.
 548
 549 - test_done
 550
 551   Your test script must have test_done at the end.  Its purpose
 552   is to summarize successes and failures in the test script and
 553   exit with an appropriate error code.
 554
 555 - test_tick
 556
 557   Make commit and tag names consistent by setting the author and
 558   committer times to defined state.  Subsequent calls will
 559   advance the times by a fixed amount.
 560
 561 - test_commit <message> [<filename> [<contents>]]
 562
 563   Creates a commit with the given message, committing the given
 564   file with the given contents (default for both is to reuse the
 565   message string), and adds a tag (again reusing the message
 566   string as name).  Calls test_tick to make the SHA-1s
 567   reproducible.
 568
 569 - test_merge <message> <commit-or-tag>
 570
 571   Merges the given rev using the given message.  Like test_commit,
 572   creates a tag and calls test_tick before committing.
 573
 574 - test_set_prereq <prereq>
 575
 576   Set a test prerequisite to be used later with test_have_prereq. The
 577   test-lib will set some prerequisites for you, see the
 578   "Prerequisites" section below for a full list of these.
 579
 580   Others you can set yourself and use later with either
 581   test_have_prereq directly, or the three argument invocation of
 582   test_expect_success and test_expect_failure.
 583
 584 - test_have_prereq <prereq>
 585
 586   Check if we have a prerequisite previously set with
 587   test_set_prereq. The most common use of this directly is to skip
 588   all the tests if we don't have some essential prerequisite:
 589
 590        if ! test_have_prereq PERL
 591        then
 592            skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
 593            test_done
 594        fi
 595
 596 - test_external [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
 597
 598   Execute a <script> with an <external> interpreter (like perl). This
 599   was added for tests like t9700-perl-git.sh which do most of their
 600   work in an external test script.
 601
 602        test_external \
 603            'GitwebCache::*FileCache*' \
 604            perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9503/test_cache_interface.pl
 605
 606   If the test is outputting its own TAP you should set the
 607   test_external_has_tap variable somewhere before calling the first
 608   test_external* function. See t9700-perl-git.sh for an example.
 609
 610        # The external test will outputs its own plan
 611        test_external_has_tap=1
 612
 613 - test_external_without_stderr [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
 614
 615   Like test_external but fail if there's any output on stderr,
 616   instead of checking the exit code.
 617
 618        test_external_without_stderr \
 619            'Perl API' \
 620            perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9700/test.pl
 621
 622 - test_expect_code <exit-code> <command>
 623
 624   Run a command and ensure that it exits with the given exit code.
 625   For example:
 626
 627        test_expect_success 'Merge with d/f conflicts' '
 628                test_expect_code 1 git merge "merge msg" B master
 629        '
 630
 631 - test_must_fail <git-command>
 632
 633   Run a git command and ensure it fails in a controlled way.  Use
 634   this instead of "! <git-command>".  When git-command dies due to a
 635   segfault, test_must_fail diagnoses it as an error; "! <git-command>"
 636   treats it as just another expected failure, which would let such a
 637   bug go unnoticed.
 638
 639 - test_might_fail <git-command>
 640
 641   Similar to test_must_fail, but tolerate success, too.  Use this
 642   instead of "<git-command> || :" to catch failures due to segv.
 643
 644 - test_cmp <expected> <actual>
 645
 646   Check whether the content of the <actual> file matches the
 647   <expected> file.  This behaves like "cmp" but produces more
 648   helpful output when the test is run with "-v" option.
 649
 650 - test_line_count (= | -lt | -ge | ...) <length> <file>
 651
 652   Check whether a file has the length it is expected to.
 653
 654 - test_path_is_file <path> [<diagnosis>]
 655   test_path_is_dir <path> [<diagnosis>]
 656   test_path_is_missing <path> [<diagnosis>]
 657
 658   Check if the named path is a file, if the named path is a
 659   directory, or if the named path does not exist, respectively,
 660   and fail otherwise, showing the <diagnosis> text.
 661
 662 - test_when_finished <script>
 663
 664   Prepend <script> to a list of commands to run to clean up
 665   at the end of the current test.  If some clean-up command
 666   fails, the test will not pass.
 667
 668   Example:
 669
 670        test_expect_success 'branch pointing to non-commit' '
 671                git rev-parse HEAD^{tree} >.git/refs/heads/invalid &&
 672                test_when_finished "git update-ref -d refs/heads/invalid" &&
 673                ...
 674        '
 675
 676 - test_write_lines <lines>
 677
 678   Write <lines> on standard output, one line per argument.
 679   Useful to prepare multi-line files in a compact form.
 680
 681   Example:
 682
 683        test_write_lines a b c d e f g >foo
 684
 685   Is a more compact equivalent of:
 686        cat >foo <<-EOF
 687        a
 688        b
 689        c
 690        d
 691        e
 692        f
 693        g
 694        EOF
 695
 696
 697 - test_pause
 698
 699        This command is useful for writing and debugging tests and must be
 700        removed before submitting. It halts the execution of the test and
 701        spawns a shell in the trash directory. Exit the shell to continue
 702        the test. Example:
 703
 704        test_expect_success 'test' '
 705                git do-something >actual &&
 706                test_pause &&
 707                test_cmp expected actual
 708        '
 709
 710 - test_ln_s_add <path1> <path2>
 711
 712   This function helps systems whose filesystem does not support symbolic
 713   links. Use it to add a symbolic link entry to the index when it is not
 714   important that the file system entry is a symbolic link, i.e., instead
 715   of the sequence
 716
 717        ln -s foo bar &&
 718        git add bar
 719
 720   Sometimes it is possible to split a test in a part that does not need
 721   the symbolic link in the file system and a part that does; then only
 722   the latter part need be protected by a SYMLINKS prerequisite (see below).
 723
 724Prerequisites
 725-------------
 726
 727These are the prerequisites that the test library predefines with
 728test_have_prereq.
 729
 730See the prereq argument to the test_* functions in the "Test harness
 731library" section above and the "test_have_prereq" function for how to
 732use these, and "test_set_prereq" for how to define your own.
 733
 734 - PYTHON
 735
 736   Git wasn't compiled with NO_PYTHON=YesPlease. Wrap any tests that
 737   need Python with this.
 738
 739 - PERL
 740
 741   Git wasn't compiled with NO_PERL=YesPlease.
 742
 743   Even without the PERL prerequisite, tests can assume there is a
 744   usable perl interpreter at $PERL_PATH, though it need not be
 745   particularly modern.
 746
 747 - POSIXPERM
 748
 749   The filesystem supports POSIX style permission bits.
 750
 751 - BSLASHPSPEC
 752
 753   Backslashes in pathspec are not directory separators. This is not
 754   set on Windows. See 6fd1106a for details.
 755
 756 - EXECKEEPSPID
 757
 758   The process retains the same pid across exec(2). See fb9a2bea for
 759   details.
 760
 761 - PIPE
 762
 763   The filesystem we're on supports creation of FIFOs (named pipes)
 764   via mkfifo(1).
 765
 766 - SYMLINKS
 767
 768   The filesystem we're on supports symbolic links. E.g. a FAT
 769   filesystem doesn't support these. See 704a3143 for details.
 770
 771 - SANITY
 772
 773   Test is not run by root user, and an attempt to write to an
 774   unwritable file is expected to fail correctly.
 775
 776 - LIBPCRE
 777
 778   Git was compiled with USE_LIBPCRE=YesPlease. Wrap any tests
 779   that use git-grep --perl-regexp or git-grep -P in these.
 780
 781 - CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS
 782
 783   Test is run on a case insensitive file system.
 784
 785 - UTF8_NFD_TO_NFC
 786
 787   Test is run on a filesystem which converts decomposed utf-8 (nfd)
 788   to precomposed utf-8 (nfc).
 789
 790Tips for Writing Tests
 791----------------------
 792
 793As with any programming projects, existing programs are the best
 794source of the information.  However, do _not_ emulate
 795t0000-basic.sh when writing your tests.  The test is special in
 796that it tries to validate the very core of GIT.  For example, it
 797knows that there will be 256 subdirectories under .git/objects/,
 798and it knows that the object ID of an empty tree is a certain
 79940-byte string.  This is deliberately done so in t0000-basic.sh
 800because the things the very basic core test tries to achieve is
 801to serve as a basis for people who are changing the GIT internal
 802drastically.  For these people, after making certain changes,
 803not seeing failures from the basic test _is_ a failure.  And
 804such drastic changes to the core GIT that even changes these
 805otherwise supposedly stable object IDs should be accompanied by
 806an update to t0000-basic.sh.
 807
 808However, other tests that simply rely on basic parts of the core
 809GIT working properly should not have that level of intimate
 810knowledge of the core GIT internals.  If all the test scripts
 811hardcoded the object IDs like t0000-basic.sh does, that defeats
 812the purpose of t0000-basic.sh, which is to isolate that level of
 813validation in one place.  Your test also ends up needing
 814updating when such a change to the internal happens, so do _not_
 815do it and leave the low level of validation to t0000-basic.sh.
 816
 817Test coverage
 818-------------
 819
 820You can use the coverage tests to find code paths that are not being
 821used or properly exercised yet.
 822
 823To do that, run the coverage target at the top-level (not in the t/
 824directory):
 825
 826    make coverage
 827
 828That'll compile Git with GCC's coverage arguments, and generate a test
 829report with gcov after the tests finish. Running the coverage tests
 830can take a while, since running the tests in parallel is incompatible
 831with GCC's coverage mode.
 832
 833After the tests have run you can generate a list of untested
 834functions:
 835
 836    make coverage-untested-functions
 837
 838You can also generate a detailed per-file HTML report using the
 839Devel::Cover module. To install it do:
 840
 841   # On Debian or Ubuntu:
 842   sudo aptitude install libdevel-cover-perl
 843
 844   # From the CPAN with cpanminus
 845   curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo --self-upgrade
 846   cpanm --sudo Devel::Cover
 847
 848Then, at the top-level:
 849
 850    make cover_db_html
 851
 852That'll generate a detailed cover report in the "cover_db_html"
 853directory, which you can then copy to a webserver, or inspect locally
 854in a browser.