Re: [PATCH v4 7/7] t/README: Document the do's and don'ts of tests

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 02:35, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

+Do's, don'ts & things to keep in mind
+-------------------------------------
+
+Here's a few examples of things you probably should and shouldn't do
+when writing tests.

"Here are" perhaps?

quoted

+Do:
+
+ - Put as much code as possible inside test_expect_success and other
+   assertions.
+
+   Even code that isn't a test per se, but merely some setup code
+   should be inside a test assertion if at all possible. Test scripts
+   should only have trivial code outside of their assertions.

Let's make it even stronger; "should only have trivial" -> "shouldn't have
any ... unless there is a good reason."

quoted

+Don't:
+
+ - exit() within a <script> part.
+
+   The harness will catch this as a programming error of the test.
+   Use test_done instead if you need to stop the tests early (see
+   "Skipping tests" below).
+
+ - Break the TAP output
+
+   The raw output from your test might be interpreted by a TAP
+   harness. You usually don't have to worry about that. TAP harnesses

I'd recommend dropping "You usually...about that"  You do care, but the
limitation may be not so severe.

quoted

+   will ignore everything they don't know about, but don't step on
+   their toes in these areas:
+
+   - Don't print lines like "$x..$y" where $x and $y are integers.
+
+   - Don't print lines that begin with "ok" or "not ok".
+
+   A TAP harness expect a line that begins with either "ok" and "not
+   ok" to signal a test passed or failed (and our harness already
+   produces such lines), so your script shouldn't emit such lines to
+   their output.
+
+   You can glean some further possible issues from the TAP grammar
+   (see http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?TAP::Parser::Grammar#TAP_Grammar)
+   but the best indication is to just run the tests with prove(1),
+   it'll complain if anything is amiss.
+
+Keep in mind:
+
+ - That what you print to stderr and stdout is usually ignored
+
+   Inside <script> part, the standard output and standard error

Splitting the above into two sentences (or a header and a body) makes it
unclear that your "usually" comes from the earlier "Do Put as much code
inside test_expect_success...".  I think you can simply drop "That what
you print ... ignored".

Everything else in the series looked good.  Thanks.

All of these rewordings (the "t/README: proposed rewording..." commit
in pu) look good.

    Acked-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason [off-list ref]