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Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook
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Ian Langworth, chromatic
O'Reilly Media, Paperback, Published July 2005, 180 pages, ISBN 0596100922
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Chapter 4: Distributing Your tests (and Code)

     

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Is there any sexier topic in software development than software testing? That is, besides game programming, 3D graphics, audio, high-performance clustering, cool websites, et cetera? Okay, so software testing is low on the list. And that's unfortunate, because good software testing can increase your productivity, improve your designs, raise your quality, ease your maintenance burdens, and help to satisfy your customers, coworkers, and managers.

Perl has a strong history of automated tests. A very early release of Perl 1.0 included a comprehensive test suite, and it's only improved from there. Learning how Perl's test tools work and how to put them together to solve all sorts of previously intractable problems can make you a better programmer in general. Besides, it's easy to use the Perl tools described to handle all sorts of testing problems that you may encounter, even in other languages.

Like all titles in O'Reilly's Developer's Notebook series, this "all lab, no lecture" book skips the boring prose and focuses instead on a series of exercises that speak to you instead of at you. Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook will help you dive right in and:

* Write basic Perl tests with ease and interpret the results
* Apply special techniques and modules to improve your tests
* Bundle test suites along with projects
* Test databases and their data
* Test websites and web projects
* Use the "Test Anything Protocol" which tests projects written in languages other than Perl

With today's increased workloads and short development cycles, unit tests are more vital to building robust, high-quality software than ever before. Once mastered, these lessons will help you ensure low-level code correctness, reduce software development cycle time, and ease maintenance burdens.

You don't have to be a die-hard free and open source software developer who lives, breathes, and dreams Perl to use this book. You just have to want to do your job a little bit better.


Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Beginning Testing
     Installing Test Modules
     Running Tests
     Interpreting Test Results
     Writing Your First Test
     Loading Modules
     Improving Test Comparisons

Chapter 2. Writing Tests
     Skipping Tests
     Skipping All Tests
     Marking Tests as TODO
     Simple Data Structure Equality
     Data Composition
     Testing Warnings
     Testing Exceptions

Chapter 3. Managing Tests
     Organizing Tests
     Checking Your Coverage
     Writing a Testing Library
     Testing a Testing Library
     Writing a Testing Harness
     Testing Across the Network
     Automating Test Runs

Chapter 4. Distributing Your Tests (and Code)
     Testing POD Files
     Testing Documentation Coverage
     Distribution Signatures
     Testing Entire Distributions
     Letting the User Decide
     Letting the User Decide (Continued)
     Bundling Tests with Modules
     Collecting Test Results
     Validating Kwalitee

Chapter 5. Testing Untestable Code
     Overriding Built-ins
     Mocking Modules
     Mocking Objects
     Partially Mocking Objects
     Overriding Live Code
     Overriding Operators Everywhere

Chapter 6. Testing Databases
     Shipping Test Databases
     Testing Database Data
     Using Temporary Databases
     Mocking Databases

Chapter 7. Testing Web Sites
     Testing Your Backend
     Testing Your Frontend
     Record and Play Back Browsing Sessions
     Testing the Validity of HTML
     Running Your Own Apache Server
     Testing with Apache-Test
     Distributing Modules with Apache-Test

Chapter 8. Unit Testing with Test::Class
     Writing Test Cases
     Creating Test Fixtures
     Inheriting Tests
     Skipping Tests with Test::Class
     Marking Tests as TODO with Test::Class

Chapter 9. Testing Everything Else
     Writing Testable Programs
     Testing Programs
     Testing Interactive Programs
     Testing Shared Libraries

Index

About the Author

Ian Langworth has been writing Perl for years and actively involved in the community since 2003. He has contributed a handful of modules to the CPAN, most of which are Kwiki-related. He has spoken at Perl-related conferences as LISA and YAPC. Ian is also the author surprisingly widespread utility, Cadubi, which is packaged for many free operating systems.
Ian is currently studying Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology at Northeastern University. Whilst pursuing a degree, he's participating in an volunteer systems administration group and working toward making higher code quality and robustness an easier goal to achieve. He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts where he participates in the local Boston Perl Mongers group and lives precariously close to Fenway Park.


Customer Reviews

Customer Reviews: 1     Average Customer Rating:

Aug 21, 2006     Paul from Harpers Ferry, WV
Disappointing
The book assumes too much about your installed Perl modules, but worse yet, it has too many useless examples. Another major objection I have is the graph paper background to the pages. It makes reading tiresome and difficult. O'Reilly should rethink this. I consider this book a waste of my money!



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