For Devel::Cover to cover all files in specific paths - perl

I have been tasked with cleaning up some legacy code which is poorly written, but has an astonishingly large number of tests. Some of these tests run code in files like this:
fcgi/*.fcgi
I would very much like to include those in my coverage reports. In fact, I'd love to ensure that I can include everything (regardless of extension) in lib/, fcgi/, and utils/ and nothing in any other directories.
This is one of my many attempts:
HARNESS_PERL_SWITCHES=-MDevel::Cover=+inc,fcgi,+inc,lib,+inc,util prove -rl t
FAIL!
I've also tried creating simple Build.PL or Makefile.PL scripts and keep getting "No tests defined" when I run things like 'cover -test' or './Build testcover'.
This is Devel::Cover 0.88 and perl version 5.12.2

Alright, i took your example, fiddled a bit with it and it seems to work fine for me with a minimal Makefile.PL and cover -test. Please clone this: git://gist.github.com/3061026.git
The README file contains what happens on my system.
Specifically, in one of my test files, I added:
use 5.12.0;
use Test::More;
use lib 'lib';
use Foo;
require 'fcgi/foo.fcgi'; # <====== pull in an fcgi file
is craptastic(), 'This is craptastic',
'We have run an fcgi/*fcgi test';

Related

Devel::Cover usage with a wrapper and a .pm module with a test script

I have a .pm module (Main.pm) which has a wrapper around it written in perl(Mainwrapper). These two are part of development team. I have written a test script in perl to test the wrapper(Testwrapper.pl). Now, I need to get the coverage using Devel::Cover for the wrapper(written by someone else) and its test script(written by me). The Mainwrapper of course uses the .pm module.
I tried using perl -MDEVEL:COVER Testwrapper.pl after having all Mainwrapper Main.pm and Testwrapper.pl in the same directory. Also included Main.pm in the Testwrapper.pl code. I could only get coverage for Testwrapper.pl and the Main.pm module in the report. One workaround I performed was to rename the Mainwrapper as Mainwrapper.pm and included in the Testwrapper.pl file. This would give me coverage for all. However, this is not a long term solution. Can anyone please tell me how to go with this?
I'm a bit confused about the different modules and scripts. But I gather that you have a module Main.pm, two wrapper modules using Main.pm, and two scripts using the two wrapper modules.
By running perl -MDevel::Cover script1.pl and perl -MDevel::Cover script2.pl you create two directories in cover_db/runs. Then you can run the command cover. This will generate the file cover_db/coverage.html. Open the HTML file in a browser and you should see a merged report containing script1.pl and script2.pl.

What is the proper way to test perl modules during development?

I'm working on a personal Perl module to build a basic script framework and to help me learn more about the language. I've created a new module called "AWSTools::Framework" with ExtUtils::ModuleMaker via the command line tool modulemaker. I'm trying to figure out the appropriate way to test it during development.
The directory structure that was created includes the following:
./AWSTOOLS/Framework/lib/AWSTools/Framework.pm
./AWSTOOLS/Framework/t/001_load.t
The autogenerated 001_load.t file looks like this:
# -*- perl -*-
# t/001_load.t - check module loading and create testing directory
use Test::More tests => 2;
BEGIN { use_ok( 'AWSTools::Framework' ); }
my $object = AWSTools::Framework->new ();
isa_ok ($object, 'AWSTools::Framework');
If I try to run the script directly (either from the command line or inside my TextMate editor), it fails with:
Can't locate AWSTools/Framework.pm in #INC....
If I try to run prove in the ./AWSTOOLS/Framework directory, it fails as well.
The question is: What is the proper way to run the tests on Perl modules while developing them?
If you want to run a single test file, you need to tell perl where to find your modules just like you would for any other program. I use the blib to automatically add the right paths:
$ perl Makefile.PL; make; perl -Mblib t/some_test.t
You can also use prove to do the same thing. I don't use prove, but you can read its documentation to figure it out. The -b switch should do that, but I've had problems with it not doing the right thing (could just be my own idiocy).
If you're using the typical toolchain (ExtUtils::MakeMaker) it will be perl Makefile.PL to generate a makefile, then make test every time afterward. Those commands should be run from the root directory of the module. See http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?ExtUtils::MakeMaker#make_test
Edit: and don't do it all manually, or you will come to hate testing. (Well, more than usual.) You will also want to look at least briefly at Test::Tutorial and https://www.socialtext.net/perl5/testing
You may also want to ask the friendly* people in #perl or related channels on your preferred IRC networks.
*Not actually friendly
I actually think that Dist::Zilla is sufficiently flexible enough to allow you to use it for all development. If you aren't uploading to CPAN, just make sure you don't have [UploadToCPAN] in your dist.ini. Also make sure to [#Filter] it out of any plugin bundles which provide it.
Dist::Zilla may be too much to install for only one quick module that you aren't going to touch very often. If you have more than one dist in development then it is definitely worth a look.
You can easily interface it with your VCS using plugins. (Including Git)
You can create a plugin to deploy onto your server. Which would allow you to make sure that all your test files pass before allowing you to deploy ([TestRelease]).
If you don't like tabs in your source files, you can test for that without writing the test yourself ([NoTabsTests]).
Minimal dist.ini for non-CPAN dist
name = Your-Library
author = E. Xavier Ample <example#example.org>
license = Perl_5
copyright_holder = E. Xavier Ample <example#example.org>
copyright_year = 2012
version = 0.001
[GatherDir]
[PruneCruft]
[PruneFiles]
filename = dist.ini
filename = TODO.txt
match = ^.*[.]te?mp$
[NoTabsTests]
[TestRelease]
[CheckExtraTests]
[ModuleBuild]
[FakeRelease]
Test the dist:
dzil test
dzil xtest
If at a later date, you decide to upload it to CPAN:
Replace [FakeRelease] with [UploadToCPAN].
Get a PAUSE id, and set ~/.pause.
user YOUR-PAUSE-ID
password YOUR-PAUSE-PASSWORD
Run dzil release
DONE
In a quick attempt to help you, I would recommend looking at Testing Files and Test Modules.
Continuing to dig around and experiment, I've found the following two things which work for me:
Use prove -l in the './AWSTOOLS/Framework' directory. According to the prove perldoc page, it adds the "lib" directory to the path when Perl runs all the tests in the "t" directory.
To run the script individually/directly, I'm adding the following to the start of the script above the use Test::More line:
use FindBin qw($Bin);
use lib "$Bin/../lib";
This let's me run the script directly via the commad line and in my editor (TextMate). This is based off this page from the Programming Perl book.
Using the -l flag for prove seems very much like the correct thing to do.
As for the "use lib" solution, I doubt that's actually a best practice. If it was, I would expect that modulemaker would have created the 001_load.t test file with that to begin with.

Is there documentation for writing tests (and building) with Module::Build?

So I've made a few modules for my own use, and I'm wondering if there is any documentation about how to write tests for perl modules using Module::Build.
The specific problem I'm running into is that I've got three modules, HomeBrew::IO, HomeBrew::Stats, and HomeBrew::Bio, and I can't figure out how to build or test them separately the way the files are arranged.
The three module files are located in the same directory .../HomeBrew/lib/HomeBrew/, and I've got three Build.PL files located in the .../HomeBrew/ directory (named IO-Build.PL, etc), and three .t files in .../HomeBrew/t/ (named HomeBrew-IO.t etc).
What seems to happen is that the three Build.PL files don't seem to know that they're only supposed to build one module at a time. I'll show you one of these:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Module::Build;
my $build = Module::Build->new
(
module_name => "HomeBrew::IO",
dist_author => "George Locke",
dist_abstract => "Various utilities for reading files",
build_requires => {
'Test::More' => '0.10',
'POSIX' => '0', # for tmpname()
'Test::Exception' => '0', # to test that checkExist dies
},
);
$build->create_build_script();
(I should probably be using File::Temp instead of POSIX, but this is only used in testing so it's not a high priority)
In the future, I would like to change my test scripts to have one for each subroutine so I can say Build test checkExist and check just one at sub at a time.
So,
how do I make sure that create_build_script() doesn't include every single .pm file in the lib/HomeBrew. I'd prefer to keep all the HomeBrew module files within the .../HomeBrew directory, but do I have to separate out each one into different directories?
How do I make tests for each subroutine such that Module::Build knows how to test a whole module or just one part of it?
right now, when I say ./Build test it tests all three modules at once (and ./Build install installs all three at once).
It sounds to me like the issue is with your premise, that you need to build and test them separately. If you want to do that, they should be separate installations, in their own directories, with their own Build.PL files etc. If, however, they should be distributed together, they should be built and tested together.
As for testing things separately, you could test each sub in its own test file, or split up the tests in any other way you like. You don't have to invoke your tests with make test or ./Build test -- you can always just explicitly run the test(s) you care about: perl -Ilib t/<name of test>.
You say in your comment to Ether that you don't always want to run every test. In that case, you probably want to use App::Prove to run just the tests that you want to see. It has many other features to manage the information you track and see.

How do I start a new Perl module distribution?

I'm trying to set up a large-ish project, written in Perl. The IBM MakeMaker tutorial has been very helpful so far, but I don't understand how to link all the modules into the main program. In my project root, I have MANIFEST, Makefile.PL, README, a bin directory, and a lib directory. In my bin directory, I have my main script (Main.pl). In the lib directory, I have each of my modules, divided up into their own respective directories (i.e. Utils::Util1 and Utils::Utils2 in the utils directory, etc). In each module directory, there is also a t directory, containing tests
My MANIFEST file has the following:
bin/Main.pl
lib/Utils/Util1.pm
lib/Utils/Util2.pm
lib/Utils/t/Utils1.t
lib/Utils/t/Utils2.t
Makefile.PL
MANIFEST
README
Makefile.PL is the following:
use ExtUtils::MakeMaker;
WriteMakefile(
'NAME'=>'Foo',
'VERSION_FROM'=>'bin/Main.pl',
'PREREQ_PM'=>{
"XML::Simple"=> 2.18}, #The libraries that we need and their
#minimum version numbers
'EXE_FILES' =>[("bin/Main.pl")]
);
After I make and run, the program crashes, complaining that it cannot find Utils::Util1, and when I run 'make test, it says no tests defined. Can anyone make any suggestions? I have never done a large scale project like this in perl, and I will need to add many more modules
If you are just starting to create Perl modules (which is also Perl's equivalent of a project), don't use Makemaker. Module::Build is the way to go, and it's now part of the standard library. Makemaker is for us old salts who haven't converted to Module::Build yet. :) I'll strike that now that Module::Build is unmaintained and out of favor; I still use MakeMaker.
You should never start off a Perl project by trying to create the structure yourself. It's too much work and you'll always forget something.
There's h2xs, a program that comes with perl and was supposed to be a tool to convert .h files into Perl's glue language XS. It works fine, but its advantage is that it comes with perl:
% h2xs -AXn Module::Name
Something like Module::Starter is a bit more sophisticated, although you have to get it from CPAN. It's the tool we use in Intermediate Perl because it's simple. It fills in some templates with your information:
% module-starter --author=... --email=... --module=...
If you are doing to do this quite a bit, you might then convert that to Distribution::Cooker so you can customize your files and contents. It's a dinky utility I wrote for myself so I could use my own templates.
% dist_cooker Module::Name
If you're really hard core, you might want Dist::Zilla, but that's more for people who already know what they are doing.
Might I also suggest module-starter? It'll automatically create a skeleton project which "Just Works". I learned what little I know about Perl modules organization by reading the generated skeleton files. It's all well-documented, and quite easy to use as a base for growing a larger project in. You can check out the getting-started docs to see what it gives you.
Running module-starter will give you a Perl distribution, consisting of a number of modules (use the command line option --module, such as:
module-starter --distro=Project --module=Project::Module::A,Project::Module::B [...]
to create multiple modules in a single distribution). It's then up to you whether you'd prefer to organize your project as a single distribution consisting of a number of modules working together, or as a number of distributions which can be released separately but which depend on each other (as configured in your Build or Makefile.PL file) to provide a complete system.
Try this structure:
bin/Main.pl
lib/Utils/Util1.pm
lib/Utils/Util2.pm
Makefile.PL
MANIFEST
README
t/Utils1.t
t/Utils2.t
As ysth said, make does not install your modules, it just builds them in a blib directory. (In your case it just copies them there, but if you had XS code, it would be compiled with a C compiler.) Use make install to install your modules for regular scripts to use.
If you want to run your script between make and make install, you can do:
perl -Mblib bin/Main.pl
The -Mblib instructs perl to temporarily add the appropriate directories to the search path, so you can try out an uninstalled module. (make test does that automatically.)
By default, tests are looked for in a top-level t directory (or a test.pl file, but that has some limitations, so should be avoided).
You say "After I make and run"...make puts things into a blib directory structure ready to be installed, but doesn't do anything special to make running a script access them. (make test is special; it does add appropriate paths from blib to perl's #INC to be able to run the tests.) You will need to do a "make install" to install the modules where your script will find them (or use a tool like PAR to package them together with your script).

How do I find the module dependencies of my Perl script?

I want another developer to run a Perl script I have written. The script uses many CPAN modules that have to be installed before the script can be run. Is it possible to make the script (or the perl binary) to dump a list of all the missing modules? Perl prints out the missing modules’ names when I attempt to run the script, but this is verbose and does not list all the missing modules at once. I’d like to do something like:
$ cpan -i `said-script --list-deps`
Or even:
$ list-deps said-script > required-modules # on my machine
$ cpan -i `cat required-modules` # on his machine
Is there a simple way to do it? This is not a show stopper, but I would like to make the other developer’s life easier. (The required modules are sprinkled across several files, so that it’s not easy for me to make the list by hand without missing anything. I know about PAR, but it seems a bit too complicated for what I want.)
Update: Thanks, Manni, that will do. I did not know about %INC, I only knew about #INC. I settled with something like this:
print join("\n", map { s|/|::|g; s|\.pm$||; $_ } keys %INC);
Which prints out:
Moose::Meta::TypeConstraint::Registry
Moose::Meta::Role::Application::ToClass
Class::C3
List::Util
Imager::Color
…
Looks like this will work.
Check out Module::ScanDeps and the "scandeps.pl" utility that comes with it. It can do a static (and recursive) analysis of your code for dependencies as well as the %INC dump either after compiling or running the program.
Please note that the static source scanning always errs on the side of including too many dependencies. (It is the dependency scanner used by PAR and aims at being easiest on the end-user.)
Finally, you could choose to distribute your script as a CPAN distribution. That sounds much more complicated than it really is. You can use something like Module::Starter to set up a basic skeleton of a tentative App::YourScript distribution. Put your script in the bin/ subdirectory and edit the Makefile.PL to reference all of your direct dependencies. Then, for distribution you do:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make dist
The last step generates a nice App-YourScript-VERSION.tar.gz
Now, when the client wants to install all dependencies, he does the following:
Set up the CPAN client correctly. Simply run it and answer the questions. But you're requiring that already anyway.
"tar -xz App-YourScript-VERSION.tar.gz && cd App-YourScript-VERSION"
Run "cpan ."
The CPAN client will now install all direct dependencies and the dependencies of those distributions automatically. Depending on how you set it up, it will either follow the prerequisites recursively automatically or prompt with a y/n each time.
As an example of this, you might check out a few of the App::* distributions on CPAN. I would think App::Ack is a good example. Maybe one of the App::* distributions from my CPAN directory (SMUELLER).
You could dump %INC at the end of your script. It will contain all used and required modules. But of course, this will only be helpful if you don't require modules conditionally (require Foo if $bar).
For quick-and-dirty, infrequent use, the %INC is the best way to go. If you have to do this with continuous integration testing or something more robust, there are some other tools to help.
Steffen already mentioned the Module::ScanDeps.
The code in Test::Prereq does this, but it has an additional layer that ensures that your Makefile.PL or Build.PL lists them as a dependency. If you make your scripts look like a normal Perl distribution, that makes it fairly easy to check for new dependencies; just run the test suite again.
Aside from that, you might use a tool such as Module::Extract::Use, which parses the static code looking for use and require statements (although it won't find them in string evals). That gets you just the modules you told your script to load.
Also, once you know which modules you loaded, you can combine that with David Cantrell's CPANdeps tool that has already created the dependency tree for most CPAN modules.
Note that you also have to think about optional features too. Your code in this case my not have them, but sometimes you don't load a module until you need it:
sub foo
{
require Bar; # don't load until we need to use it
....
}
If you don't exercise that feature in your trial run or test, you won't see that you need Bar for that feature. A similar problem comes up when a module loads a different set of dependency modules in a different environment (say, mod_perl or Windows, and so on).
There's not a good, automated way of testing optional features like that so you can get their dependencies. However, I think that should be on my To Do list since it sounds like an interesting problem.
Another tool in this area, which is used by Dist::Zilla and its AutoPrereqs plugin, is Perl::PrereqScanner. It installs a scan-perl-prereqs program that will use PPI and a few plugins to search for most kinds of prereq declaration, using the minimum versions you define. In general, I suggest this over scanning %INC, which can bring in bogus requirements and ignores versions.
Today I develop my Perl apps as CPAN-like distributions using Dist::Zilla that can take care of the dependencies through the AutoPrereq plugin. Another interesting piece of code in this area is carton.