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diff --git a/test/system/README.md b/test/system/README.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..6ac408f4e --- /dev/null +++ b/test/system/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,82 @@ +Quick overview of podman system tests. The idea is to use BATS, +but with a framework for making it easy to add new tests and to +debug failures. + +Quick Start +=========== + +Look at [030-run.bats](030-run.bats) for a simple but packed example. +This introduces the basic set of helper functions: + +* `setup` (implicit) - resets container storage so there's +one and only one (standard) image, and no running containers. + +* `parse_table` - you can define tables of inputs and expected results, +then read those in a `while` loop. This makes it easy to add new tests. +Because bash is not a programming language, the caller of `parse_table` +sometimes needs to massage the returned values; `015-run.bats` offers +examples of how to deal with the more typical such issues. + +* `run_podman` - runs command defined in `$PODMAN` (default: 'podman' +but could also be './bin/podman' or 'podman-remote'), with a timeout. +Checks its exit status. + +* `is` - compare actual vs expected output. Emits a useful diagnostic +on failure. + +* `die` - output a properly-formatted message to stderr, and fail test + +* `skip_if_rootless` - if rootless, skip this test with a helpful message. + +* `random_string` - returns a pseudorandom alphanumeric string + +Test files are of the form `NNN-name.bats` where NNN is a three-digit +number. Please preserve this convention, it simplifies viewing the +directory and understanding test order. In particular, `00x` tests +should be reserved for a first-pass fail-fast subset of tests: + + bats test/system/00*.bats || exit 1 + bats test/system + +...the goal being to provide quick feedback on catastrophic failures +without having to wait for the entire test suite. + + +Analyzing test failures +======================= + +The top priority for this scheme is to make it easy to diagnose +what went wrong. To that end, `podman_run` always logs all invoked +commands, their output and exit codes. In a normal run you will never +see this, but BATS will display it on failure. The goal here is to +give you everything you need to diagnose without having to rerun tests. + +The `is` comparison function is designed to emit useful diagnostics, +in particular, the actual and expected strings. Please do not use +the horrible BATS standard of `[ x = y ]`; that's nearly useless +for tracking down failures. + +If the above are not enough to help you track down a failure: + + +Debugging tests +--------------- + +Some functions have `dprint` statements. To see the output of these, +set `PODMAN_TEST_DEBUG="funcname"` where `funcname` is the name of +the function or perhaps just a substring. + + +Requirements +============ + +The `jq` tool is needed for parsing JSON output. + + +Further Details +=============== + +TBD. For now, look in [helpers.bash](helpers.bash); each helper function +has (what are intended to be) helpful header comments. For even more +examples, see and/or run `helpers.t`; that's a regression test +and provides a thorough set of examples of how the helpers work. |