1 files changed, 65 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/test/system/README.md b/test/system/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6853b68f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/system/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+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 'podman-remote'), with a timeout. Checks its exit status.
+
+* `is` - compare actual vs expected output. Emits a useful diagnostic
+on failure.
+
+* `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. Most of the time it's not
+important but `00x` should be reserved for the times when it matters.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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.