README

                            C TAP Harness 4.8
               (C harness for running TAP-compliant tests)
               Maintained by Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>

  Copyright 2000-2001, 2004, 2006-2022 Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>.
  Copyright 2006-2009, 2011-2013 The Board of Trustees of the Leland
  Stanford Junior University.  This software is distributed under a
  BSD-style license.  Please see the section LICENSE below for more
  information.

BLURB

  C TAP Harness is a pure-C implementation of TAP, the Test Anything
  Protocol.  TAP is the text-based protocol used by Perl's test suite.
  This package provides a harness similar to Perl's Test::Harness for
  running tests, with some additional features useful for test suites in
  packages that use Autoconf and Automake, and C and shell libraries to
  make writing TAP-compliant test programs easier.

DESCRIPTION

  This package started as the runtests program I wrote for INN in 2000 to
  serve as the basis for a new test suite using a test protocol similar to
  that used for Perl modules.  When I started maintaining additional C
  packages, I adopted runtests for the test suite driver of those as well,
  resulting in further improvements but also separate copies of the same
  program in different distributions.  The C TAP Harness distribution
  merges all the various versions into a single code base that all my
  packages can pull from.

  C TAP Harness provides a full TAP specification driver (apart from a few
  possible edge cases) and has additional special features for supporting
  builds outside the source directory.  It's mostly useful for packages
  using Autoconf and Automake and because it doesn't assume or require
  Perl.

  The runtests program can be built with knowledge of the source and build
  directory and pass that knowledge on to test scripts, and will search
  for test scripts in both the source and build directory.  This makes it
  easier for packages using Autoconf and Automake and supporting
  out-of-tree builds to build some test programs, ship others, and run
  them all regardless of what tree they're in.  It also makes it easier
  for test cases to find their supporting files when they run.

  Also included in this package are C and shell libraries that provide
  utility functions for writing test scripts that use TAP to report
  results.  The C library also provides a variety of utility functions
  useful for test programs running as part of an Automake-built package:
  finding test data files, creating temporary files, reporting output from
  external programs running in the background, and similar common
  problems.

REQUIREMENTS

  C TAP Harness requires a C compiler to build.  Any ISO C89 or later C
  compiler on a system supporting the Single UNIX Specification, version 3
  (SUSv3) should be sufficient.  This should not be a problem on any
  modern system.  The test suite and shell library require a
  Bourne-compatible shell.  Outside of the test suite, C TAP Harness has
  no other prerequisites or requirements.

  C TAP Harness can also be built with a C++ compiler and should be
  similarly portable to any recent C++ compiler, although it is only
  tested with g++.

  To bootstrap from a Git checkout, or if you change the Automake files
  and need to regenerate Makefile.in, you will need Automake 1.11 or
  later.  For bootstrap or if you change configure.ac or any of the m4
  files it includes and need to regenerate configure or config.h.in, you
  will need Autoconf 2.64 or later.  Perl is also required to generate
  manual pages from a fresh Git checkout.

BUILDING

  You can build C TAP Harness with the standard commands:

      ./configure
      make

  If you are building from a Git clone, first run ./bootstrap in the
  source directory to generate the build files.  Building outside of the
  source directory is also supported, if you wish, by creating an empty
  directory and then running configure with the correct relative path.

  Pass --enable-silent-rules to configure for a quieter build (similar to
  the Linux kernel).  Use make warnings instead of make to build with full
  compiler warnings (requires either GCC or Clang and may require a
  relatively current version of the compiler).

  Installing C TAP Harness is not normally done.  Instead, see the section
  on using the harness below.

TESTING

  C TAP Harness comes with a comprehensive test suite, which you can run
  after building with:

      make check

  If a test fails, you can run a single test with verbose output via:

      tests/runtests -b $(pwd)/tests -s $(pwd)/tests -o <name-of-test>

  Do this instead of running the test program directly since it will
  ensure that necessary environment variables are set up.  You may need to
  change the -s option argument if you build with a separate build
  directory from the source directory.

  To run the test suite, you will need Perl 5.10 or later.  The following
  additional Perl modules will be used by the test suite if present:

  * Test::Pod
  * Test::Spelling

  All are available on CPAN.  Those tests will be skipped if the modules
  are not available.

  To enable tests that don't detect functionality problems but are used to
  sanity-check the release, set the environment variable RELEASE_TESTING
  to a true value.  To enable tests that may be sensitive to the local
  environment or that produce a lot of false positives without uncovering
  many problems, set the environment variable AUTHOR_TESTING to a true
  value.

USING THE HARNESS

  While there is an install target that installs runtests in the default
  binary directory (/usr/local/bin by default) and installs the man pages,
  one normally wouldn't install anything from this package.  Instead, the
  code is intended to be copied into your package and refreshed from the
  latest release of C TAP Harness for each release.

  You can obviously copy the code and integrate it however works best for
  your package and your build system.  Here's how I do it for my packages
  as an example:

  * Create a tests directory and copy tests/runtests.c into it.  Create a
    tests/tap subdirectory and copy the portions of the TAP library (from
    tests/tap) that I need for that package into it.  The TAP library is
    designed to let you drop in additional source and header files for
    additional utility functions that are useful in your package.

  * Add code to my top-level Makefile.am (I always use a non-recursive
    Makefile with subdir-objects set) to build runtests and the test
    library:

        check_PROGRAMS = tests/runtests
        tests_runtests_CPPFLAGS = \
                -DC_TAP_SOURCE='"$(abs_top_srcdir)/tests"' \
                -DC_TAP_BUILD='"$(abs_top_builddir)/tests"'
        check_LIBRARIES = tests/tap/libtap.a
        tests_tap_libtap_a_CPPFLAGS = -I$(abs_top_srcdir)/tests
        tests_tap_libtap_a_SOURCES = tests/tap/basic.c tests/tap/basic.h \
                tests/tap/float.c tests/tap/float.h tests/tap/macros.h

    Omit float.c and float.h from the last line if your package doesn't
    need the is_double function.  Building the build and source
    directories into runtests will let tests/runtests -o <test> work for
    users without requiring that they set any other variables, even if
    they're doing an out-of-source build.

    Add additional source files and headers that should go into the TAP
    library if you added extra utility functions for your package.

  * Add code to Makefile.am to run the test suite:

        check-local: $(check_PROGRAMS)
              cd tests && ./runtests -l $(abs_top_srcdir)/tests/TESTS

    See the Makefile.am in this package for an example.

  * List the test programs in the tests/TESTS file.  This should have the
    name of the test executable with the trailing "-t" or ".t" (you can
    use either extension as you prefer) omitted.

    Test programs must be executable.

    For any test programs that need to be compiled, add build rules for
    them in Makefile.am, similar to:

        tests_libtap_c_basic_LDADD = tests/tap/libtap.a

    and add them to check_PROGRAMS.  If you include the float.c add-on in
    your libtap library, you will need to add -lm to the _LDADD setting
    for all test programs linked against it.

    A more complex example from the remctl package that needs additional
    libraries:

        tests_client_open_t_LDFLAGS = $(GSSAPI_LDFLAGS)
        tests_client_open_t_LDADD = client/libremctl.la tests/tap/libtap.a \
                util/libutil.la $(GSSAPI_LIBS)

    If the test program doesn't need to be compiled, add it to EXTRA_DIST
    so that it will be included in the distribution.

  * If you have test programs written in shell, copy tests/tap/libtap.sh
    the tap subdirectory of your tests directory and add it to EXTRA_DIST.
    Shell programs should start with:

        . "${C_TAP_SOURCE}/tap/libtap.sh"

    and can then use the functions defined in the library.

  * Optionally copy docs/writing-tests into your package somewhere, such
    as tests/README, as instructions to contributors on how to write tests
    for this framework.

  If you have configuration files that the user must create to enable some
  of the tests, conventionally they go into tests/config.

  If you have data files that your test cases use, conventionally they go
  into tests/data.  You can then find the data directory relative to the
  C_TAP_SOURCE environment variable (set by runtests) in your test
  program.  If you have data that's compiled or generated by Autoconf, it
  will be relative to the BUILD environment variable.  Don't forget to add
  test data to EXTRA_DIST as necessary.

  For more TAP library add-ons, generally ones that rely on additional
  portability code not shipped in this package or with narrower uses, see
  the rra-c-util package [1].  There are several additional TAP library
  add-ons in the tests/tap directory in that package.  It's also an
  example of how to use this test harness in another package.

  [1] https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/rra-c-util/

SUPPORT

  The C TAP Harness web page at:

      https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/c-tap-harness/

  will always have the current version of this package, the current
  documentation, and pointers to any additional resources.

  For bug tracking, use the issue tracker on GitHub:

      https://github.com/rra/c-tap-harness/issues

  However, please be aware that I tend to be extremely busy and work
  projects often take priority.  I'll save your report and get to it as
  soon as I can, but it may take me a couple of months.

SOURCE REPOSITORY

  C TAP Harness is maintained using Git.  You can access the current
  source on GitHub at:

      https://github.com/rra/c-tap-harness

  or by cloning the repository at:

      https://git.eyrie.org/git/devel/c-tap-harness.git

  or view the repository via the web at:

      https://git.eyrie.org/?p=devel/c-tap-harness.git

  The eyrie.org repository is the canonical one, maintained by the author,
  but using GitHub is probably more convenient for most purposes.  Pull
  requests are gratefully reviewed and normally accepted.

LICENSE

  The C TAP Harness package as a whole is covered by the following
  copyright statement and license:

    Copyright 2000-2001, 2004, 2006-2022 Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>
    Copyright 2006-2009, 2011-2013
        The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University

    Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
    a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
    "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
    without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
    distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
    permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
    the following conditions:

    The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
    included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

    THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
    EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
    MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
    IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
    CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
    TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
    SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

  Some files in this distribution are individually released under
  different licenses, all of which are compatible with the above general
  package license but which may require preservation of additional
  notices.  All required notices, and detailed information about the
  licensing of each file, are recorded in the LICENSE file.

  Files covered by a license with an assigned SPDX License Identifier
  include SPDX-License-Identifier tags to enable automated processing of
  license information.  See https://spdx.org/licenses/ for more
  information.

  For any copyright range specified by files in this package as YYYY-ZZZZ,
  the range specifies every single year in that closed interval.