3 Testing is an important part of the Mono project: every one of its
4 three major components has a test suite tailored for its needs. This
5 is very helpful, because in the course of developing the software it
6 is very common to introduce bugs in existing code. A test suite
7 helps us fix the bugs as soon as they are introduced.
9 There are various kinds of tests in Mono:
11 <li><a href="#unit"><b>Class Library Unit
12 Tests:</b></a> These are used to test the class
15 <li><a href="#compiler"><b>Compiler tests</b></a>: Both
16 tests that should pass and tests that should fail are included.
18 <li><a href="#runtime"><b>Runtime tests</b></a>: Tests for
21 <li><a href="#aspnet"><b>ASP.NET tests</b></a>: ASP.NET tests.
23 <li><a href="#ws"><b>Web Services tests</b></a>: Web Services
30 All classes in Mono libraries should have comprehensive unit test
31 suites to go with them. Unit testing is a software engineering
32 methodology that makes it easier to build correct code. Every
33 method in every class should have a set of tests to verify
34 that they work correctly. Mono also needs a testing framework
35 to make it easy to write and run lots of tests.
37 In some classes, we might also provide standalone tests because of
38 some reasons such as too huge testcases, another downloading and so on.
39 (For example, managed XSLT has standalone test which downloads and
40 expands some megabytes of OASIS test suite.)
42 Here I list them up as long as I know. If you are going to add another
43 standalone tests, please add one line here. It is also recommended that
44 you add some notes on how to build and run tests.
49 * System.Data/Test, and some individual ADO.NET libraries:
50 there are some standalone tests. See the bottom of <a href="ado-net.html">
51 ADO.NET page</a> for detail.
52 * System.Web/Test/TestMonoWeb : see README
53 * System.Web.Services/Test/standalone : see README
54 * System.Windows.Forms/SWFTest/
55 * System.XML/Tests/System.Xml.Schema/standalone_tests : see README
56 * System.XML/System.Xml.Serialization/standalone_tests/
57 * System.XML/Tests/System.Xml.Xsl/standalone_tests : see README
63 If you are new to writing NUnit tests, there is a template you may use
64 to help get started. The file is:
66 <b>mcs/class/doc/TemplateTest.cs</b>
68 Save a copy of this file in the appropriate test subdirecty
69 (see below), and replace all the {text} markers with
70 appropriate code. Comments in the template are there to guide
71 you. You should also look at existing tests to see how other
72 people have written them.
73 mcs/class/corlib/Test/System.Collections/CollectionBaseTest.cs
74 is a small one that might help.
76 The directory that will contain your new file depends on the
77 assembly/namespace of the class for which you are creating the
78 tests. Under mcs/class there is a directory for each
79 assembly. In each assembly there is a Test directory,
80 e.g. mcs/class/corlib/Test. In the Test directory there are
81 sub-directories for each namespace in the assembly,
82 e.g. mcs/class/corlib/Test/Sytem. Put your new test file in
83 the appropriate sub-directory under Test for the class you are
86 Once all of that is done, you can do a 'make test' from the top mcs
87 directory. Your test class will be automagically included in the
88 build and the tests will be run along with all the others.
90 * Tips on writing Unit tests.
92 You should look at the <a href="http://nunit.org">NUnit documentation</a>,
93 as it is a fantastic product, and includes fantastic documentation,
94 but here are some tips for those of you who are already reading
98 ** Provide an unique error message for Assert()
100 Include an unique message for each Assert() so that when the assert
101 fails, it is trivial to locate it in the source. Otherwise, it may be
102 difficult to determine which part of the test is failing. A good way
103 to ensure unique messages is to use something like #A01, #A02 etc.
108 AssertEquals("array match", compare[0], i1[0]);
109 AssertEquals("array match", compare[1], i1[1]);
110 AssertEquals("array match", compare[2], i1[2]);
111 AssertEquals("array match", compare[3], i1[3]);
116 AssertEquals("#A01", compare[0], i1[0]);
117 AssertEquals("#A02", compare[1], i1[1]);
118 AssertEquals("#A03", compare[2], i1[2]);
119 AssertEquals("#A04", compare[3], i1[3]);
122 Once you used such a number in an Assert(), don't change it later on -
123 people might use it it identify the test in bug reports or in mailing
126 ** Use AssertEquals() to compare things, not Assert().
128 Do not compare two values with Assert() - if the test fails,
129 people have no idea what went wrong while AssertEquals()
130 reports the failed value.
134 Assert ("A01", myTicks[0] == t1.Ticks);
139 AssertEquals ("A01", myTicks[0], t1.Ticks);
142 ** Test your test with the Microsoft runtime
144 If possible, try to run your testsuite with the Microsoft runtime on
145 .NET on Windows and make sure all tests in it pass. This is especially
146 important if you're writing a totally new testcase - without this
147 check you can never be sure that your testcase contains no bugs ....
149 Don't worry if you're writing your test on Linux, other people can
150 test it for you on Windows.
152 Sometimes you may discover that a test doesn't show the expected
153 result when run with the Microsoft runtime - either because there is a
154 bug in their runtime or something is misleading or wrong in their
155 documentation. In this case, please put a detailed description of the
156 problem to mcs/class/doc/API-notes and do also report it to the
157 <a href="mailing-lists">mailing list</a> - we'll forward this to the
158 Microsoft people from time to time to help them fix their documentation
163 Why do unit testing? It becomes simple to run automated tests
164 for the whole library. Unit tests are a safety net - you can
165 change part of the code and verify that you haven't broken
166 anything. Ideally, tests are written before the actual library
167 code itself. And every time a bug is discovered, a test should
168 be written to demonstrate the bug and its fix. Then, if
169 you ever reintroduce the bug, you will know immediately. For
171 href="http://junit.sourceforge.net/doc/testinfected/testing.htm">
172 JUnit Test Infected: Programmers Love Writing Tests</a>.
177 We welcome all contributions to the Class Libary Test Suite.
179 There is information to help you get started in CVS at
180 mcs/class/doc/NUnitGuidelines. Once you have written your test, please
181 post it to <a href="mailing-lists.html">mono-list</a>.
183 Someone will make sure to add the file or apply the patch as
184 appropriate. If you plan to be an on-going contributor and
185 would like to get cvs account, email <a href="mailto:miguel@ximian.com">miguel</a>.
187 Normally, after you send a couple of well-written new files
188 and/or patches to the list, you will be given cvs access.
190 <a name="compiler"></a>
193 Mono ships with three compilers: C#, VB.NET and JScript. The
194 tests are ran by running the makefile target `make
195 run-test-local' in the appropriate directory.
197 The C# compilation tests live in mcs/tests, and the C# error
198 tests live in mcs/errors.
200 The VB.NET compilation tests live in mcs/btests.
202 <a name="runtime"></a>
205 These tests verify the virtual machine, to run these tests, do:
212 <a name="aspnet"></a>
215 XSP, the Mono ASP.NET server has tests for ASP.NET pages. It uses
216 <a href="http://nunitasp.sourceforge.net">NUnitAsp</a>. Right now
217 it only has standalone tests, ie., tests that do not need their own
218 global.asax or web.config files.
220 If you want to run them, get the xsp CVS module and install it. Then:
228 And from another terminal:
230 cd xsp/nunit-tests/standalone
231 nunit-console standalone-tests.dll
237 The Test directory for the System.Web.Services assembly contains a
238 standalone test suite for testing web services. It tests:
241 <li>Proxy generation using the wsdl tool</li>
242 <li>Access to web services using the generated client proxies</li>
243 <li>Execution of web services in the server</li>
246 This suite not only tests web services running on XSP, but it can also test
247 services running on other platforms and that are available in internet. This
248 will help track down interoperability issues.
250 To build the test suite, just run:
253 cd mcs/class/System.Web.Services/Test/standalone
257 And from another terminal:
259 cd mcs/class/System.Web.Services/Test/standalone
261 nunit-console testclient.dll
264 This will download the wsdl documents, generate the proxies, build a dll with
265 the proxies, and build the nunit tests. Then you can use nunit-console or
266 gnunit to run the tests (the nunit dll is testclient.dll).
268 Read the README file in mcs/class/System.Web.Services/Test/standalone for