@hackage shelltestrunner0.9

This tool aims to help with repeatable testing of a command-line program (or any shell command), via declarative "shell tests" which are easier to write than procedural shell scripts. Tests are defined in one or more test files, which typically have the .test suffix and live in a tests/ subdirectory. Each test specifies a command line, optional standard input, and expected standard output, error output and/or exit status. Tests can be run in parallel for greater speed. shelltestrunner was inspired by the tests in John Wiegley's ledger project.

Compatibility: should work on microsoft windows as well as unix; not well tested on windows. Should build with ghc 6.10; for unicode support, requires ghc 6.12.

Usage:

    shelltest [FLAG] [TESTFILES|TESTDIRS]

      -? --help[=FORMAT]           Show usage information (optional format)
      -V --version                 Show version information
      -v --verbose                 Higher verbosity
      -q --quiet                   Lower verbosity
      -d --debug                   show debug messages
         --debug-parse             show parsing debug messages and stop
      -c --color                   display with ANSI color codes
         --execdir                 run tests in same directory as test file
         --extension=EXT           extension of test files when dirs specified (default=.test)
      -i --implicit=none|exit|all  provide implicit tests (default=exit)
      -w --with=EXECUTABLE         alternate executable, replaces the first word of test commands
         =OTHER FLAGS              any other flags are passed to test runner

    A test file contains one or more shell tests, which look like this:

     # optional comment lines
     a one-line shell command to be tested
     <<<
     stdin lines
     >>> [/regexp to match in stdout/]
     [or expected stdout lines
     >>>2 [/regexp to match in stderr/]
     [or expected stderr lines]
     >>>= expected exit status or /regexp/

    The command line is required; all other fields are optional.
    The expected stdout (>>>) and expected stderr (>>>2) fields can have either
    a regular expression match pattern, in which case the test passes if the
    output is matched, or 0 or more data lines, in which case the output
    must match these exactly. The expected exit status (>>>=) field can have
    either a numeric exit code or a /regexp/. A ! preceding a /regexp/ or exit
    code negates the match. The regular expression syntax is that of the
    pcre-light library with the dotall flag.

    By default there is an implicit test for exit status=0, but no implicit test
    for stdout or stderr.  You can change this with -i/--implicit-tests.

    The command runs in your current directory unless you use --execdir.
    You can use --with/-w to replace the first word of command lines
    (everything up to the first space) with something else, eg to test a
    different version of your program. To prevent this, start the command line
    with a space.

    Any unrecognised options will be passed through to test-framework's runner.
    You may be able to get a big speedup by running tests in parallel: try -j8.