Elektra  0.8.20
Script Testing

Issue

Writing portable shell code for testing commandline tools is difficult.

Constraints

  • Should be able to record input/output/exit codes of command-line tools
  • Should be aware of configuration settings (KDB), for example, restore it on changes

Assumptions

None.

Considered Alternatives

  • http://pythonpaste.org/scripttest/
    • easy to work with
    • can only trace a single directory (would not work with /etc + ~)
    • extra dependency not in any distro
  • robotframework
    • additional (fat) dependency
    • integration with cmake?
    • does not allow one to capture stdout, stderr + return code
  • expect
    • interactive testing (e.g. for kdb mount)
    • quite long for simple things (e.g. check /bin/true needs 4 lines)
    • new syntax for Elektra (TCL)
    • additional dependency

Decision

Develop shell recorder and tutorial wrapper.

Argument

Implications

Related decisions

Notes