t / READMEon commit t: fix severe &&-chain breakage (8fb2687)
   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-x::
  86        Turn on shell tracing (i.e., `set -x`) during the tests
  87        themselves. Implies `--verbose`. Note that this can cause
  88        failures in some tests which redirect and test the
  89        output of shell functions. Use with caution.
  90
  91-d::
  92--debug::
  93        This may help the person who is developing a new test.
  94        It causes the command defined with test_debug to run.
  95        The "trash" directory (used to store all temporary data
  96        during testing) is not deleted even if there are no
  97        failed tests so that you can inspect its contents after
  98        the test finished.
  99
 100-i::
 101--immediate::
 102        This causes the test to immediately exit upon the first
 103        failed test. Cleanup commands requested with
 104        test_when_finished are not executed if the test failed,
 105        in order to keep the state for inspection by the tester
 106        to diagnose the bug.
 107
 108-l::
 109--long-tests::
 110        This causes additional long-running tests to be run (where
 111        available), for more exhaustive testing.
 112
 113-r::
 114--run=<test-selector>::
 115        Run only the subset of tests indicated by
 116        <test-selector>.  See section "Skipping Tests" below for
 117        <test-selector> syntax.
 118
 119--valgrind=<tool>::
 120        Execute all Git binaries under valgrind tool <tool> and exit
 121        with status 126 on errors (just like regular tests, this will
 122        only stop the test script when running under -i).
 123
 124        Since it makes no sense to run the tests with --valgrind and
 125        not see any output, this option implies --verbose.  For
 126        convenience, it also implies --tee.
 127
 128        <tool> defaults to 'memcheck', just like valgrind itself.
 129        Other particularly useful choices include 'helgrind' and
 130        'drd', but you may use any tool recognized by your valgrind
 131        installation.
 132
 133        As a special case, <tool> can be 'memcheck-fast', which uses
 134        memcheck but disables --track-origins.  Use this if you are
 135        running tests in bulk, to see if there are _any_ memory
 136        issues.
 137
 138        Note that memcheck is run with the option --leak-check=no,
 139        as the git process is short-lived and some errors are not
 140        interesting. In order to run a single command under the same
 141        conditions manually, you should set GIT_VALGRIND to point to
 142        the 't/valgrind/' directory and use the commands under
 143        't/valgrind/bin/'.
 144
 145--valgrind-only=<pattern>::
 146        Like --valgrind, but the effect is limited to tests with
 147        numbers matching <pattern>.  The number matched against is
 148        simply the running count of the test within the file.
 149
 150--tee::
 151        In addition to printing the test output to the terminal,
 152        write it to files named 't/test-results/$TEST_NAME.out'.
 153        As the names depend on the tests' file names, it is safe to
 154        run the tests with this option in parallel.
 155
 156--with-dashes::
 157        By default tests are run without dashed forms of
 158        commands (like git-commit) in the PATH (it only uses
 159        wrappers from ../bin-wrappers).  Use this option to include
 160        the build directory (..) in the PATH, which contains all
 161        the dashed forms of commands.  This option is currently
 162        implied by other options like --valgrind and
 163        GIT_TEST_INSTALLED.
 164
 165--root=<directory>::
 166        Create "trash" directories used to store all temporary data during
 167        testing under <directory>, instead of the t/ directory.
 168        Using this option with a RAM-based filesystem (such as tmpfs)
 169        can massively speed up the test suite.
 170
 171--chain-lint::
 172--no-chain-lint::
 173        If --chain-lint is enabled, the test harness will check each
 174        test to make sure that it properly "&&-chains" all commands (so
 175        that a failure in the middle does not go unnoticed by the final
 176        exit code of the test). This check is performed in addition to
 177        running the tests themselves. You may also enable or disable
 178        this feature by setting the GIT_TEST_CHAIN_LINT environment
 179        variable to "1" or "0", respectively.
 180
 181You can also set the GIT_TEST_INSTALLED environment variable to
 182the bindir of an existing git installation to test that installation.
 183You still need to have built this git sandbox, from which various
 184test-* support programs, templates, and perl libraries are used.
 185If your installed git is incomplete, it will silently test parts of
 186your built version instead.
 187
 188When using GIT_TEST_INSTALLED, you can also set GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH to
 189override the location of the dashed-form subcommands (what
 190GIT_EXEC_PATH would be used for during normal operation).
 191GIT_TEST_EXEC_PATH defaults to `$GIT_TEST_INSTALLED/git --exec-path`.
 192
 193
 194Skipping Tests
 195--------------
 196
 197In some environments, certain tests have no way of succeeding
 198due to platform limitation, such as lack of 'unzip' program, or
 199filesystem that do not allow arbitrary sequence of non-NUL bytes
 200as pathnames.
 201
 202You should be able to say something like
 203
 204    $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS=t9200.8 sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh
 205
 206and even:
 207
 208    $ GIT_SKIP_TESTS='t[0-4]??? t91?? t9200.8' make
 209
 210to omit such tests.  The value of the environment variable is a
 211SP separated list of patterns that tells which tests to skip,
 212and either can match the "t[0-9]{4}" part to skip the whole
 213test, or t[0-9]{4} followed by ".$number" to say which
 214particular test to skip.
 215
 216For an individual test suite --run could be used to specify that
 217only some tests should be run or that some tests should be
 218excluded from a run.
 219
 220The argument for --run is a list of individual test numbers or
 221ranges with an optional negation prefix that define what tests in
 222a test suite to include in the run.  A range is two numbers
 223separated with a dash and matches a range of tests with both ends
 224been included.  You may omit the first or the second number to
 225mean "from the first test" or "up to the very last test"
 226respectively.
 227
 228Optional prefix of '!' means that the test or a range of tests
 229should be excluded from the run.
 230
 231If --run starts with an unprefixed number or range the initial
 232set of tests to run is empty. If the first item starts with '!'
 233all the tests are added to the initial set.  After initial set is
 234determined every test number or range is added or excluded from
 235the set one by one, from left to right.
 236
 237Individual numbers or ranges could be separated either by a space
 238or a comma.
 239
 240For example, to run only tests up to a specific test (21), one
 241could do this:
 242
 243    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-21'
 244
 245or this:
 246
 247    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-21'
 248
 249Common case is to run several setup tests (1, 2, 3) and then a
 250specific test (21) that relies on that setup:
 251
 252    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1 2 3 21'
 253
 254or:
 255
 256    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run=1,2,3,21
 257
 258or:
 259
 260    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='-3 21'
 261
 262As noted above, the test set is built going though items left to
 263right, so this:
 264
 265    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='1-4 !3'
 266
 267will run tests 1, 2, and 4.  Items that comes later have higher
 268precendence.  It means that this:
 269
 270    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!3 1-4'
 271
 272would just run tests from 1 to 4, including 3.
 273
 274You may use negation with ranges.  The following will run all
 275test in the test suite except from 7 up to 11:
 276
 277    $ sh ./t9200-git-cvsexport-commit.sh --run='!7-11'
 278
 279Some tests in a test suite rely on the previous tests performing
 280certain actions, specifically some tests are designated as
 281"setup" test, so you cannot _arbitrarily_ disable one test and
 282expect the rest to function correctly.
 283
 284--run is mostly useful when you want to focus on a specific test
 285and know what setup is needed for it.  Or when you want to run
 286everything up to a certain test.
 287
 288
 289Naming Tests
 290------------
 291
 292The test files are named as:
 293
 294        tNNNN-commandname-details.sh
 295
 296where N is a decimal digit.
 297
 298First digit tells the family:
 299
 300        0 - the absolute basics and global stuff
 301        1 - the basic commands concerning database
 302        2 - the basic commands concerning the working tree
 303        3 - the other basic commands (e.g. ls-files)
 304        4 - the diff commands
 305        5 - the pull and exporting commands
 306        6 - the revision tree commands (even e.g. merge-base)
 307        7 - the porcelainish commands concerning the working tree
 308        8 - the porcelainish commands concerning forensics
 309        9 - the git tools
 310
 311Second digit tells the particular command we are testing.
 312
 313Third digit (optionally) tells the particular switch or group of switches
 314we are testing.
 315
 316If you create files under t/ directory (i.e. here) that is not
 317the top-level test script, never name the file to match the above
 318pattern.  The Makefile here considers all such files as the
 319top-level test script and tries to run all of them.  Care is
 320especially needed if you are creating a common test library
 321file, similar to test-lib.sh, because such a library file may
 322not be suitable for standalone execution.
 323
 324
 325Writing Tests
 326-------------
 327
 328The test script is written as a shell script.  It should start
 329with the standard "#!/bin/sh" with copyright notices, and an
 330assignment to variable 'test_description', like this:
 331
 332        #!/bin/sh
 333        #
 334        # Copyright (c) 2005 Junio C Hamano
 335        #
 336
 337        test_description='xxx test (option --frotz)
 338
 339        This test registers the following structure in the cache
 340        and tries to run git-ls-files with option --frotz.'
 341
 342
 343Source 'test-lib.sh'
 344--------------------
 345
 346After assigning test_description, the test script should source
 347test-lib.sh like this:
 348
 349        . ./test-lib.sh
 350
 351This test harness library does the following things:
 352
 353 - If the script is invoked with command line argument --help
 354   (or -h), it shows the test_description and exits.
 355
 356 - Creates an empty test directory with an empty .git/objects database
 357   and chdir(2) into it.  This directory is 't/trash
 358   directory.$test_name_without_dotsh', with t/ subject to change by
 359   the --root option documented above.
 360
 361 - Defines standard test helper functions for your scripts to
 362   use.  These functions are designed to make all scripts behave
 363   consistently when command line arguments --verbose (or -v),
 364   --debug (or -d), and --immediate (or -i) is given.
 365
 366Do's, don'ts & things to keep in mind
 367-------------------------------------
 368
 369Here are a few examples of things you probably should and shouldn't do
 370when writing tests.
 371
 372Do:
 373
 374 - Put all code inside test_expect_success and other assertions.
 375
 376   Even code that isn't a test per se, but merely some setup code
 377   should be inside a test assertion.
 378
 379 - Chain your test assertions
 380
 381   Write test code like this:
 382
 383        git merge foo &&
 384        git push bar &&
 385        test ...
 386
 387   Instead of:
 388
 389        git merge hla
 390        git push gh
 391        test ...
 392
 393   That way all of the commands in your tests will succeed or fail. If
 394   you must ignore the return value of something, consider using a
 395   helper function (e.g. use sane_unset instead of unset, in order
 396   to avoid unportable return value for unsetting a variable that was
 397   already unset), or prepending the command with test_might_fail or
 398   test_must_fail.
 399
 400 - Check the test coverage for your tests. See the "Test coverage"
 401   below.
 402
 403   Don't blindly follow test coverage metrics; if a new function you added
 404   doesn't have any coverage, then you're probably doing something wrong,
 405   but having 100% coverage doesn't necessarily mean that you tested
 406   everything.
 407
 408   Tests that are likely to smoke out future regressions are better
 409   than tests that just inflate the coverage metrics.
 410
 411 - When a test checks for an absolute path that a git command generated,
 412   construct the expected value using $(pwd) rather than $PWD,
 413   $TEST_DIRECTORY, or $TRASH_DIRECTORY. It makes a difference on
 414   Windows, where the shell (MSYS bash) mangles absolute path names.
 415   For details, see the commit message of 4114156ae9.
 416
 417Don't:
 418
 419 - exit() within a <script> part.
 420
 421   The harness will catch this as a programming error of the test.
 422   Use test_done instead if you need to stop the tests early (see
 423   "Skipping tests" below).
 424
 425 - use '! git cmd' when you want to make sure the git command exits
 426   with failure in a controlled way by calling "die()".  Instead,
 427   use 'test_must_fail git cmd'.  This will signal a failure if git
 428   dies in an unexpected way (e.g. segfault).
 429
 430   On the other hand, don't use test_must_fail for running regular
 431   platform commands; just use '! cmd'.  We are not in the business
 432   of verifying that the world given to us sanely works.
 433
 434 - use perl without spelling it as "$PERL_PATH". This is to help our
 435   friends on Windows where the platform Perl often adds CR before
 436   the end of line, and they bundle Git with a version of Perl that
 437   does not do so, whose path is specified with $PERL_PATH. Note that we
 438   provide a "perl" function which uses $PERL_PATH under the hood, so
 439   you do not need to worry when simply running perl in the test scripts
 440   (but you do, for example, on a shebang line or in a sub script
 441   created via "write_script").
 442
 443 - use sh without spelling it as "$SHELL_PATH", when the script can
 444   be misinterpreted by broken platform shell (e.g. Solaris).
 445
 446 - chdir around in tests.  It is not sufficient to chdir to
 447   somewhere and then chdir back to the original location later in
 448   the test, as any intermediate step can fail and abort the test,
 449   causing the next test to start in an unexpected directory.  Do so
 450   inside a subshell if necessary.
 451
 452 - Break the TAP output
 453
 454   The raw output from your test may be interpreted by a TAP harness. TAP
 455   harnesses will ignore everything they don't know about, but don't step
 456   on their toes in these areas:
 457
 458   - Don't print lines like "$x..$y" where $x and $y are integers.
 459
 460   - Don't print lines that begin with "ok" or "not ok".
 461
 462   TAP harnesses expect a line that begins with either "ok" and "not
 463   ok" to signal a test passed or failed (and our harness already
 464   produces such lines), so your script shouldn't emit such lines to
 465   their output.
 466
 467   You can glean some further possible issues from the TAP grammar
 468   (see http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TAP::Parser::Grammar#TAP_Grammar)
 469   but the best indication is to just run the tests with prove(1),
 470   it'll complain if anything is amiss.
 471
 472Keep in mind:
 473
 474 - Inside <script> part, the standard output and standard error
 475   streams are discarded, and the test harness only reports "ok" or
 476   "not ok" to the end user running the tests. Under --verbose, they
 477   are shown to help debugging the tests.
 478
 479
 480Skipping tests
 481--------------
 482
 483If you need to skip tests you should do so by using the three-arg form
 484of the test_* functions (see the "Test harness library" section
 485below), e.g.:
 486
 487    test_expect_success PERL 'I need Perl' '
 488        perl -e "hlagh() if unf_unf()"
 489    '
 490
 491The advantage of skipping tests like this is that platforms that don't
 492have the PERL and other optional dependencies get an indication of how
 493many tests they're missing.
 494
 495If the test code is too hairy for that (i.e. does a lot of setup work
 496outside test assertions) you can also skip all remaining tests by
 497setting skip_all and immediately call test_done:
 498
 499        if ! test_have_prereq PERL
 500        then
 501            skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
 502            test_done
 503        fi
 504
 505The string you give to skip_all will be used as an explanation for why
 506the test was skipped.
 507
 508End with test_done
 509------------------
 510
 511Your script will be a sequence of tests, using helper functions
 512from the test harness library.  At the end of the script, call
 513'test_done'.
 514
 515
 516Test harness library
 517--------------------
 518
 519There are a handful helper functions defined in the test harness
 520library for your script to use.
 521
 522 - test_expect_success [<prereq>] <message> <script>
 523
 524   Usually takes two strings as parameters, and evaluates the
 525   <script>.  If it yields success, test is considered
 526   successful.  <message> should state what it is testing.
 527
 528   Example:
 529
 530        test_expect_success \
 531            'git-write-tree should be able to write an empty tree.' \
 532            'tree=$(git-write-tree)'
 533
 534   If you supply three parameters the first will be taken to be a
 535   prerequisite; see the test_set_prereq and test_have_prereq
 536   documentation below:
 537
 538        test_expect_success TTY 'git --paginate rev-list uses a pager' \
 539            ' ... '
 540
 541   You can also supply a comma-separated list of prerequisites, in the
 542   rare case where your test depends on more than one:
 543
 544        test_expect_success PERL,PYTHON 'yo dawg' \
 545            ' test $(perl -E 'print eval "1 +" . qx[python -c "print 2"]') == "4" '
 546
 547 - test_expect_failure [<prereq>] <message> <script>
 548
 549   This is NOT the opposite of test_expect_success, but is used
 550   to mark a test that demonstrates a known breakage.  Unlike
 551   the usual test_expect_success tests, which say "ok" on
 552   success and "FAIL" on failure, this will say "FIXED" on
 553   success and "still broken" on failure.  Failures from these
 554   tests won't cause -i (immediate) to stop.
 555
 556   Like test_expect_success this function can optionally use a three
 557   argument invocation with a prerequisite as the first argument.
 558
 559 - test_debug <script>
 560
 561   This takes a single argument, <script>, and evaluates it only
 562   when the test script is started with --debug command line
 563   argument.  This is primarily meant for use during the
 564   development of a new test script.
 565
 566 - test_done
 567
 568   Your test script must have test_done at the end.  Its purpose
 569   is to summarize successes and failures in the test script and
 570   exit with an appropriate error code.
 571
 572 - test_tick
 573
 574   Make commit and tag names consistent by setting the author and
 575   committer times to defined state.  Subsequent calls will
 576   advance the times by a fixed amount.
 577
 578 - test_commit <message> [<filename> [<contents>]]
 579
 580   Creates a commit with the given message, committing the given
 581   file with the given contents (default for both is to reuse the
 582   message string), and adds a tag (again reusing the message
 583   string as name).  Calls test_tick to make the SHA-1s
 584   reproducible.
 585
 586 - test_merge <message> <commit-or-tag>
 587
 588   Merges the given rev using the given message.  Like test_commit,
 589   creates a tag and calls test_tick before committing.
 590
 591 - test_set_prereq <prereq>
 592
 593   Set a test prerequisite to be used later with test_have_prereq. The
 594   test-lib will set some prerequisites for you, see the
 595   "Prerequisites" section below for a full list of these.
 596
 597   Others you can set yourself and use later with either
 598   test_have_prereq directly, or the three argument invocation of
 599   test_expect_success and test_expect_failure.
 600
 601 - test_have_prereq <prereq>
 602
 603   Check if we have a prerequisite previously set with
 604   test_set_prereq. The most common use of this directly is to skip
 605   all the tests if we don't have some essential prerequisite:
 606
 607        if ! test_have_prereq PERL
 608        then
 609            skip_all='skipping perl interface tests, perl not available'
 610            test_done
 611        fi
 612
 613 - test_external [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
 614
 615   Execute a <script> with an <external> interpreter (like perl). This
 616   was added for tests like t9700-perl-git.sh which do most of their
 617   work in an external test script.
 618
 619        test_external \
 620            'GitwebCache::*FileCache*' \
 621            perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9503/test_cache_interface.pl
 622
 623   If the test is outputting its own TAP you should set the
 624   test_external_has_tap variable somewhere before calling the first
 625   test_external* function. See t9700-perl-git.sh for an example.
 626
 627        # The external test will outputs its own plan
 628        test_external_has_tap=1
 629
 630 - test_external_without_stderr [<prereq>] <message> <external> <script>
 631
 632   Like test_external but fail if there's any output on stderr,
 633   instead of checking the exit code.
 634
 635        test_external_without_stderr \
 636            'Perl API' \
 637            perl "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t9700/test.pl
 638
 639 - test_expect_code <exit-code> <command>
 640
 641   Run a command and ensure that it exits with the given exit code.
 642   For example:
 643
 644        test_expect_success 'Merge with d/f conflicts' '
 645                test_expect_code 1 git merge "merge msg" B master
 646        '
 647
 648 - test_must_fail <git-command>
 649
 650   Run a git command and ensure it fails in a controlled way.  Use
 651   this instead of "! <git-command>".  When git-command dies due to a
 652   segfault, test_must_fail diagnoses it as an error; "! <git-command>"
 653   treats it as just another expected failure, which would let such a
 654   bug go unnoticed.
 655
 656 - test_might_fail <git-command>
 657
 658   Similar to test_must_fail, but tolerate success, too.  Use this
 659   instead of "<git-command> || :" to catch failures due to segv.
 660
 661 - test_cmp <expected> <actual>
 662
 663   Check whether the content of the <actual> file matches the
 664   <expected> file.  This behaves like "cmp" but produces more
 665   helpful output when the test is run with "-v" option.
 666
 667 - test_line_count (= | -lt | -ge | ...) <length> <file>
 668
 669   Check whether a file has the length it is expected to.
 670
 671 - test_path_is_file <path> [<diagnosis>]
 672   test_path_is_dir <path> [<diagnosis>]
 673   test_path_is_missing <path> [<diagnosis>]
 674
 675   Check if the named path is a file, if the named path is a
 676   directory, or if the named path does not exist, respectively,
 677   and fail otherwise, showing the <diagnosis> text.
 678
 679 - test_when_finished <script>
 680
 681   Prepend <script> to a list of commands to run to clean up
 682   at the end of the current test.  If some clean-up command
 683   fails, the test will not pass.
 684
 685   Example:
 686
 687        test_expect_success 'branch pointing to non-commit' '
 688                git rev-parse HEAD^{tree} >.git/refs/heads/invalid &&
 689                test_when_finished "git update-ref -d refs/heads/invalid" &&
 690                ...
 691        '
 692
 693 - test_write_lines <lines>
 694
 695   Write <lines> on standard output, one line per argument.
 696   Useful to prepare multi-line files in a compact form.
 697
 698   Example:
 699
 700        test_write_lines a b c d e f g >foo
 701
 702   Is a more compact equivalent of:
 703        cat >foo <<-EOF
 704        a
 705        b
 706        c
 707        d
 708        e
 709        f
 710        g
 711        EOF
 712
 713
 714 - test_pause
 715
 716        This command is useful for writing and debugging tests and must be
 717        removed before submitting. It halts the execution of the test and
 718        spawns a shell in the trash directory. Exit the shell to continue
 719        the test. Example:
 720
 721        test_expect_success 'test' '
 722                git do-something >actual &&
 723                test_pause &&
 724                test_cmp expected actual
 725        '
 726
 727 - test_ln_s_add <path1> <path2>
 728
 729   This function helps systems whose filesystem does not support symbolic
 730   links. Use it to add a symbolic link entry to the index when it is not
 731   important that the file system entry is a symbolic link, i.e., instead
 732   of the sequence
 733
 734        ln -s foo bar &&
 735        git add bar
 736
 737   Sometimes it is possible to split a test in a part that does not need
 738   the symbolic link in the file system and a part that does; then only
 739   the latter part need be protected by a SYMLINKS prerequisite (see below).
 740
 741Prerequisites
 742-------------
 743
 744These are the prerequisites that the test library predefines with
 745test_have_prereq.
 746
 747See the prereq argument to the test_* functions in the "Test harness
 748library" section above and the "test_have_prereq" function for how to
 749use these, and "test_set_prereq" for how to define your own.
 750
 751 - PYTHON
 752
 753   Git wasn't compiled with NO_PYTHON=YesPlease. Wrap any tests that
 754   need Python with this.
 755
 756 - PERL
 757
 758   Git wasn't compiled with NO_PERL=YesPlease.
 759
 760   Even without the PERL prerequisite, tests can assume there is a
 761   usable perl interpreter at $PERL_PATH, though it need not be
 762   particularly modern.
 763
 764 - POSIXPERM
 765
 766   The filesystem supports POSIX style permission bits.
 767
 768 - BSLASHPSPEC
 769
 770   Backslashes in pathspec are not directory separators. This is not
 771   set on Windows. See 6fd1106a for details.
 772
 773 - EXECKEEPSPID
 774
 775   The process retains the same pid across exec(2). See fb9a2bea for
 776   details.
 777
 778 - PIPE
 779
 780   The filesystem we're on supports creation of FIFOs (named pipes)
 781   via mkfifo(1).
 782
 783 - SYMLINKS
 784
 785   The filesystem we're on supports symbolic links. E.g. a FAT
 786   filesystem doesn't support these. See 704a3143 for details.
 787
 788 - SANITY
 789
 790   Test is not run by root user, and an attempt to write to an
 791   unwritable file is expected to fail correctly.
 792
 793 - LIBPCRE
 794
 795   Git was compiled with USE_LIBPCRE=YesPlease. Wrap any tests
 796   that use git-grep --perl-regexp or git-grep -P in these.
 797
 798 - CASE_INSENSITIVE_FS
 799
 800   Test is run on a case insensitive file system.
 801
 802 - UTF8_NFD_TO_NFC
 803
 804   Test is run on a filesystem which converts decomposed utf-8 (nfd)
 805   to precomposed utf-8 (nfc).
 806
 807Tips for Writing Tests
 808----------------------
 809
 810As with any programming projects, existing programs are the best
 811source of the information.  However, do _not_ emulate
 812t0000-basic.sh when writing your tests.  The test is special in
 813that it tries to validate the very core of GIT.  For example, it
 814knows that there will be 256 subdirectories under .git/objects/,
 815and it knows that the object ID of an empty tree is a certain
 81640-byte string.  This is deliberately done so in t0000-basic.sh
 817because the things the very basic core test tries to achieve is
 818to serve as a basis for people who are changing the GIT internal
 819drastically.  For these people, after making certain changes,
 820not seeing failures from the basic test _is_ a failure.  And
 821such drastic changes to the core GIT that even changes these
 822otherwise supposedly stable object IDs should be accompanied by
 823an update to t0000-basic.sh.
 824
 825However, other tests that simply rely on basic parts of the core
 826GIT working properly should not have that level of intimate
 827knowledge of the core GIT internals.  If all the test scripts
 828hardcoded the object IDs like t0000-basic.sh does, that defeats
 829the purpose of t0000-basic.sh, which is to isolate that level of
 830validation in one place.  Your test also ends up needing
 831updating when such a change to the internal happens, so do _not_
 832do it and leave the low level of validation to t0000-basic.sh.
 833
 834Test coverage
 835-------------
 836
 837You can use the coverage tests to find code paths that are not being
 838used or properly exercised yet.
 839
 840To do that, run the coverage target at the top-level (not in the t/
 841directory):
 842
 843    make coverage
 844
 845That'll compile Git with GCC's coverage arguments, and generate a test
 846report with gcov after the tests finish. Running the coverage tests
 847can take a while, since running the tests in parallel is incompatible
 848with GCC's coverage mode.
 849
 850After the tests have run you can generate a list of untested
 851functions:
 852
 853    make coverage-untested-functions
 854
 855You can also generate a detailed per-file HTML report using the
 856Devel::Cover module. To install it do:
 857
 858   # On Debian or Ubuntu:
 859   sudo aptitude install libdevel-cover-perl
 860
 861   # From the CPAN with cpanminus
 862   curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo --self-upgrade
 863   cpanm --sudo Devel::Cover
 864
 865Then, at the top-level:
 866
 867    make cover_db_html
 868
 869That'll generate a detailed cover report in the "cover_db_html"
 870directory, which you can then copy to a webserver, or inspect locally
 871in a browser.