File: autoconf.info,  Node: testsuite Invocation,  Next: Making testsuite Scripts,  Prev: Writing Testsuites,  Up: Using Autotest

19.3 Running ‘testsuite’ Scripts
================================

Autotest test suites support the following options:

‘--help’
‘-h’
     Display the list of options and exit successfully.

‘--version’
‘-V’
     Display the version of the test suite and exit successfully.

‘--directory=DIR’
‘-C DIR’
     Change the current directory to DIR before creating any files.
     Useful for running the testsuite in a subdirectory from a top-level
     Makefile.

‘--jobs[=N]’
‘-j[N]’
     Run N tests in parallel, if possible.  If N is not given, run all
     given tests in parallel.  Note that there should be no space before
     the argument to ‘-j’, as ‘-j NUMBER’ denotes the separate arguments
     ‘-j’ and ‘NUMBER’, see below.

     In parallel mode, the standard input device of the testsuite script
     is not available to commands inside a test group.  Furthermore,
     banner lines are not printed, and the summary line for each test
     group is output after the test group completes.  Summary lines may
     appear unordered.  If verbose and trace output are enabled (see
     below), they may appear intermixed from concurrently running tests.

     Parallel mode requires the ‘mkfifo’ command to work, and will be
     silently disabled otherwise.

‘--clean’
‘-c’
     Remove all the files the test suite might have created and exit.
     Meant for ‘clean’ Make targets.

‘--list’
‘-l’
     List all the tests (or only the selection), including their
     possible keywords.


   By default all tests are performed (or described with ‘--list’)
silently in the default environment, but the environment, set of tests,
and verbosity level can be tuned:

‘VARIABLE=VALUE’
     Set the environment VARIABLE to VALUE.  Use this rather than
     ‘FOO=foo ./testsuite’ as debugging scripts would then run in a
     different environment.

     The variable ‘AUTOTEST_PATH’ specifies the testing path to prepend
     to ‘PATH’.  Relative directory names (not starting with ‘/’) are
     considered to be relative to the top level of the package being
     built.  All directories are made absolute, first starting from the
     top level _build_ tree, then from the _source_ tree.  For instance
     ‘./testsuite AUTOTEST_PATH=tests:bin’ for a ‘/src/foo-1.0’ source
     package built in ‘/tmp/foo’ results in
     ‘/tmp/foo/tests:/tmp/foo/bin’ and then
     ‘/src/foo-1.0/tests:/src/foo-1.0/bin’ being prepended to ‘PATH’.

‘NUMBER’
‘NUMBER-NUMBER’
‘NUMBER-’
‘-NUMBER’
     Add the corresponding test groups, with obvious semantics, to the
     selection.

‘--keywords=KEYWORDS’
‘-k KEYWORDS’
     Add to the selection the test groups with title or keywords
     (arguments to ‘AT_SETUP’ or ‘AT_KEYWORDS’) that match _all_
     keywords of the comma separated list KEYWORDS, case-insensitively.
     Use ‘!’ immediately before the keyword to invert the selection for
     this keyword.  By default, the keywords match whole words; enclose
     them in ‘.*’ to also match parts of words.

     For example, running

          ./testsuite -k 'autoupdate,.*FUNC.*'

     selects all tests tagged ‘autoupdate’ _and_ with tags containing
     ‘FUNC’ (as in ‘AC_CHECK_FUNC’, ‘AC_FUNC_ALLOCA’, etc.), while

          ./testsuite -k '!autoupdate' -k '.*FUNC.*'

     selects all tests not tagged ‘autoupdate’ _or_ with tags containing
     ‘FUNC’.

‘--errexit’
‘-e’
     If any test fails, immediately abort testing.  This implies
     ‘--debug’: post test group clean up, and top-level logging are
     inhibited.  This option is meant for the full test suite, it is not
     really useful for generated debugging scripts.  If the testsuite is
     run in parallel mode using ‘--jobs’, then concurrently running
     tests will finish before exiting.

‘--verbose’
‘-v’
     Force more verbosity in the detailed output of what is being done.
     This is the default for debugging scripts.

‘--color’
‘--color[=never|auto|always]’
     Enable colored test results.  Without an argument, or with
     ‘always’, test results will be colored.  With ‘never’, color mode
     is turned off.  Otherwise, if either the macro ‘AT_COLOR_TESTS’ is
     used by the testsuite author, or the argument ‘auto’ is given, then
     test results are colored if standard output is connected to a
     terminal.

‘--debug’
‘-d’
     Do not remove the files after a test group was performed--but they
     are still removed _before_, therefore using this option is sane
     when running several test groups.  Create debugging scripts.  Do
     not overwrite the top-level log (in order to preserve a supposedly
     existing full log file).  This is the default for debugging
     scripts, but it can also be useful to debug the testsuite itself.

‘--recheck’
     Add to the selection all test groups that failed or passed
     unexpectedly during the last non-debugging test run.

‘--trace’
‘-x’
     Trigger shell tracing of the test groups.

   Besides these options accepted by every Autotest testsuite, the
testsuite author might have added package-specific options via the
‘AT_ARG_OPTION’ and ‘AT_ARG_OPTION_ARG’ macros (*note Writing
Testsuites::); refer to ‘testsuite --help’ and the package documentation
for details.