NAME
ATF —
introduction to the Automated
Testing Framework
DESCRIPTION
IMPORTANT: If you are here because you want to know how to run the
tests in /usr/tests,
you most likely want
to read the tests(7)
manual page instead.
The Automated Testing Framework (
ATF) is a collection of
libraries and utilities designed to ease unattended application testing in the
hands of developers and end users of a specific piece of software.
As regards developers,
ATF provides the necessary means to
easily create test suites composed of multiple test programs, which in turn
are a collection of test cases. It also attempts to simplify the debugging of
problems when these test cases detect an error by providing as much
information as possible about the failure.
As regards users, it simplifies the process of running the test suites and, in
special, encourages end users to run them often: they do not need to have
source trees around nor any other development tools installed to be able to
certify that a given piece of software works on their machine as advertised.
If your operating systems distributes
ATF, it is possible that
it provides an introductory
tests(7) manual page. You are
encouraged to read it now.
License
ATF is distributed under the terms of the TNF License, a
2-clause BSD license. For more details please see:
/usr/share/doc/atf/COPYING
Components
ATF is a highly modular piece of software. It provides a
couple of libraries to ease the implementation of test programs: one for the C
and C++ languages and another one for shell scripts. It also includes multiple
small utilities that follow the principle of doing a single thing but doing it
right. This section outlines which these components are.
Public utilities:
-
-
- atf-check(1)
- Executes a command and checks that its exit code, its
standard output and its standard error output match pre-specified expected
values.
-
-
- atf-config(1)
- Queries static configuration information.
-
-
- atf-report(1)
- Converts the output of atf-run to
user-friendly and/or machine-parseable reports.
-
-
- atf-run(1)
- Automates the execution of a series of test programs and
collects their results in a unified report.
-
-
- atf-sh(1)
- Shell interpreter for shell-based test programs.
Programming interfaces:
-
-
- atf-c-api(3)
- C programming interface for test programs.
-
-
- atf-c++-api(3)
- C++ programming interface for test programs.
-
-
- atf-sh-api(3)
- POSIX shell programming interface for test programs.
Other:
-
-
- atf-formats(5)
- Description of the machine-parseable data formats used by
the tools.
-
-
- atf-test-case(4)
- Generic description of test cases, independent of the
language they are implemented in.
-
-
- atf-test-program(1)
- Common interface provided by the test programs written
using the ATF libraries.
Recommended reading order
For end users wishing to run tests:
- tests(7)
(only if provided by your operating system).
- atf-test-program(1)
- atf-run(1)
- atf-report(1)
- atf-config(1)
For developers wanting to write their own tests:
- Everything recommended to
users.
- atf-test-case(4)
- atf-c-api(3)
- atf-c++-api(3)
- atf-sh-api(3)
- atf-sh(1)
- atf-check(1)
For those interested in
ATF internals:
- Everything recommended to
users.
- Everything recommended to
developers.
- atf-formats(5)
SEE ALSO
tests(7)
HISTORY
ATF started as a Google Summer of Code 2007 project mentored
by The NetBSD Foundation. Its original goal was to provide a testing framework
for The NetBSD Operating System, but it grew as an independent project because
the framework itself did not need to be tied to a specific operating system.
For more details on this subject, please see:
/usr/share/doc/atf/NEWS
/usr/share/doc/atf/ROADMAP
AUTHORS
For more details on the people that made
ATF possible, please
see:
/usr/share/doc/atf/AUTHORS