The Test::Cmd module provides a framework for portable automated testing
of executable commands and scripts, especially commands and scripts that
require file system interaction.  This module is not restricted to testing
Perl scripts; the command or script to be tested may be any executable or
a script in any language, provided a means exists to execute the script
on the local system.

In addition to running tests and evaluating conditions, the Test::Cmd
module manages and cleans up one or more temporary workspace directories,
and provides methods for creating files and directories in those
workspace directories from in-line data (that is, here documents).
This allows tests to be completely self-contained.

The Test::Cmd module manipulates filenames and pathnames using the
File::Spec module to support writing tests portably across a variety of
operating and file systems.  The Test::Cmd class is in fact a subclass
of the File::Spec class, and File::Spec methods (File::Spec::catfile(),
File::Spec::file_name_is_absolut(), etc.) are available through the
Test::Cmd class and its instances.  Consequently, tests written using
Test::Cmd need not separately import the File::Spec module.

The Test::Cmd module may be used in conjunction with the Test module to
report test results in a format suitable for the Test::Harness module.
Alternatively, the Test::Cmd module provides pass(), fail(), and
no_result() methods that report test results differently.  It is not a
good idea to intermix these two reporting models.



RESOURCES

A rudimentary page for the Test::Cmd module is available at:

	http://www.baldmt.com/Test-Cmd/



TO DO

The documentation lists a To-Be-Written Test::Cmd::diff() method that
would be a handy addition.  What I have in mind is to incorporate logic
from Amir Karger's cdiff.pl front end to MJD's Algorithm::Diff module
so that tests can generate diffs of actual and expected results without
needing a diff program installed on the system.  This is extra work to
implement but makes it as portable as possible to non-POSIX systems.



COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1999 Steven Knight.  All rights reserved.  This program is
free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself.



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Greg Spencer for the inspiration to create this package and
the initial draft of its implementation as a specific testing package
for the Cons software construction utility.  Information about Cons
is available at:

	http://www.dsmit.com/cons/

The general idea of managing temporary working directories in this way,
as well as the test reporting of the pass(), fail() and no_result()
methods, come from the testing framework invented by Peter Miller for
his Aegis project change supervisor.  Aegis is an excellent bit of work
which integrates creation and execution of regression tests into the
software development process.  Information about Aegis is available at:

	http://www.tip.net.au/~millerp/aegis.html


AUTHOR

Steven Knight, knight@baldmt.com