Re: Writing unit tests in Perl.

["Kurt D. Starsinic" <kstar@chapin.edu>]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 09:05:53AM -0800, John Nolan wrote:
> > I've been reading the XP book and am impressed with its focus on testing as
> > a basic coding task.  Writing effective unit tests is something I have never
> > really gotten a good grasp on, especially with Perl/CGI type applications.  
> > 
> > Anyone have any good pointers to tutorials/documentation/books that might
> > enlighten the novice test writer?
> 
> 
> You probably thought of this already, but you might want
> to have a look at the regression tests that are included
> with a lot of Perl modules.  Some of these are quite lengthy
> and they test all sorts of features.  Off the top of my head,
> I don't remember what sort of tests CGI.pm has, but you might
> have a look at these, as an example of how to test a CGI program. 

    I would suggest that you start with the regression tests in Perl itself.
They're a veritable encyclopedia of testing techniques.  They can be found
in the t/ directory of any Perl source tarball.

    As to regression testing CGI in particular, Jim, you might want to look
at a tool called `webscript' that I wrote while under previous employment.
Ask Al Lee where to find it.  Open-sourcing it and uploading it to CPAN are
left as an Exercise for the Reader.

    Peace,
* Kurt Starsinic (kstar@orientation.com) ---------- Senior Network Engineer *
|      ``If people are boasting that they use the best tools, you can       |
|        figure that they can't find any competitive advantage to using     |
|        those tools, or else they wouldn't be presenting them as a         |
|        competitive advantage.'' -- Dave Winer                             |

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