Lintian::Tutorial::TestSuite

Section: Debian Package Checker (3)
Updated: 2019-04-04
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NAME

Lintian::Tutorial::TestSuite -- Quick intro to running the Lintian testsuite

SYNOPSIS

This guide will quickly introduce you to running the Lintian test suite and some tricks. The Lintian test suite is fairly large and accordingly it can take a substantial amount of time to run. To speed up development, there are various options to limit the tests to run.

If you are looking for a guide on how to write tests, please consult Lintian::Tutorial::WritingTests.

DESCRIPTION

The Lintian test suite is an extensive collection of various test cases. The test suite is divided into 4 ``sub-suites''. The majority of tests are currently located in the ``tests'' sub-suite.

To run the full suite in all its glory, simply invoke:

 $ debian/rules runtests

 OR

 $ mkdir -p debian/test-out
 $ t/bin/runtests -k --dump-logs t debian/test-out

While writing a new tag (or check) you probably only want to run a particular (subset of the) test(s). See ``Running a subset of the tests'' for the available options.

When run via debian/rules, the test suite respects ``DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=parallel=N''. When using t/bin/runtests directly, use -jN to choose the number of threads. Note that ``N'' denotes the amount of ``worker'' threads. The test runner will generally have 2 threads more than that. Also each ``worker'' will run lintian, which runs multiple unpacking jobs in parallel as well.

In case you are wondering about the 2 extra threads in the test runner, the first of them is the ``coordinator'' thread (which will generally be waiting when the workers are active) and the second one is the ``output'' thread (which handles the fancy output).

Running a subset of the tests

The following options are available:

Running a single test

To run a single test by its name, use:

 $ debian/rules runtests onlyrun=$name

 OR

 $ t/bin/runtests --dump-logs t debian/test-out $name

Running all tests for a check

To run all tests for a given check, use:

 $ debian/rules runtests onlyrun=$check

 OR

 $ t/bin/runtests --dump-logs -k t debian/test-out $check

$check must be the name of a check (it will test for checks/$check.desc) or ``legacy''. This will run all tests that start with ``$check-''.

Note: The ``changes'' sub-suite in the new test suite does not support this.

Running all tests in a sub-suite

To run all tests in a given sub-suite, use:

 $ debian/rules runtests onlyrun=suite:$suites

 OR

 $ t/bin/runtests --dump-logs -k t debian/test-out suite:$suites

$suites is a comma-separated list of names of sub-suites to run.

Note: this cannot be used to influence the order in which the sub-suites are run.

Running all tests designed for a specific tag

To run all tests that have a ``Test-For'' or a ``Test-Against'' for a given tag, use:

 $ debian/rules runtests onlyrun=tag:$tag

 OR

 $ t/bin/runtests --dump-logs -k t debian/test-out tag:$tag

Running tests under coverage

It is possible to run most of the tests under Devel::Cover. This is done by passing --coverage to t/bin/runtests. Example:

  $ t/bin/runtests --coverage --dump-logs -j1 -k t debian/test-out

Please note that Devel::Cover does not seem to handle multiple threads too well. You may see spurious warnings/errors if you run the tests with 2 or more active worker threads.

Caveat 1: Coverage for collections (i.e. programs in collection/) does not seem to work at the moment. Therefore, they often end up with (next to) zero coverage in the generated reports.

Caveat 2: Devel::Cover sometimes changes the output of Lintian or tools called by Lintian. Obviously, this leads to test failures. Therefore, you may see weird test failures (or warnings) when running under coverage.

Collecting the coverage you want in a reasonable time

Collecting coverage is excruciatingly slow. This is not helped by the fact that it becomes unreliable when run under 2 or more threads.

Fortunately, Devel::Cover ``appends'' to its cover database. This allows you to ``slowly'' build up the coverage database over multiple runs. Example:

  $ t/bin/runtests --coverage --dump-logs -j1 -k t debian/test-out suite:scripts
  $ t/bin/runtests --coverage --dump-logs -j1 -k t debian/test-out suite:debs
  $ t/bin/runtests --coverage --dump-logs -j1 -k t debian/test-out suite:source
  ...

Or:

  $ t/bin/runtests --coverage --dump-logs -j1 -k t debian/test-out $check
  $ t/bin/runtests --coverage --dump-logs -j1 -k t debian/test-out legacy