Tero Koskinen
Ahven is a unit test library. It is modeled after JUnit framework for Java, but some ideas are also taken from another Ada unit test library, AUnit.
The purpose of Ahven is to be a small and portable unit test library, which works with multiple different Ada 95 compilers. Ahven has no external dependencies and therefore it is easy to build on various platforms.
Ahven tries to be compatible with utilities related to unit testing. For example, it uses same XML format for test results as Java tools. This allows easy integration to CruiseControl, Ant, and other similar programs.
Ahven is distributed under permissive ISC license (shown below).
--
-- Copyright (c) 2008, 2009, 2010 Tero Koskinen <tero.koskinen@iki.fi>
--
-- Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
-- purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
-- copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
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-- THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
-- WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
-- MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
-- ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
-- WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
-- ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
-- OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
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You are allowed to embed Ahven into a proprietary commercial application. Only requirement is to keep the copyright notice and the permission notice in the source code files. You do not need to distribute Ahven’s source code if you distribute Ahven or some parts of Ahven in the binary form.
To build and install Ahven source code, you need an Ada 95 compiler. At the moment, Ahven is tested with four different compiler families: GNAT, ObjectAda, Irvine ICCAda, and Janus/Ada.
When you have GNAT GPL or FSF GCC, the easieast way to compile and install Ahven is to use the make utility and Makefile.
When compiling using the make utility, you need to tell your platform type. Currently, only supported platform types are unix and windows. The type can be told by setting OS_VERSION variable to the selected platform.
$ make OS_VERSION=unix
If you are unable to use make, you can use the GNAT project files directly. Ahven distribution comes with three GNAT project files: ahven.gpr, ahven_lib.gpr, and ahven_tests.gpr. The ahven.gpr file is meant to be used when compiling unit tests. The library itself is build using the ahven_lib.gpr file. To build the testsuite of the Ahven, one needs to use the ahven_tests.gpr file.
Like with Makefile, you need to tell your platform type. This time the selection happens by using an environment variable called OS. The variable accepts same values as Makefile.
$ OS=windows gnatmake -P ahven_lib
$ OS=windows gnatmake -P ahven_tests
You can install the library by using command make install. By default the installation happens to the /usr/local directory. Alternative directory can be set by overwriting the PREFIX variable.
$ make OS_VERSION=unix PREFIX=/opt/ada install
Version 3.15p of GNAT does not understand some features used in the default GNAT project files. Therefore, you need to use project files from the contrib/gnat315p directory.
There is no project file included for ObjectAda. To compile Ahven, you need to create a new project and import the source code of Ahven to the project.
Easiest way to build Ahven with ICCAda is to use icm utility:
C:\ahven-2.1>cd src
C:\ahven-2.1\src>icm new
C:\ahven-2.1\src>icm scan *.ad? windows\*.ad?
C:\ahven-2.1\src>icm make libmain
C:\ahven-2.1\src>cd ..\test
C:\ahven-2.1\test>icm new -search=..\src
C:\ahven-2.1\test>icm scan *.ad?
C:\ahven-2.1\test>icm make tester
Directory janusada contains project file creation scripts for Janus/Ada. By default, the scripts assume Janus/Ada to be installed to directory C:\Janus312\. If that is not the case, change the path from file prepare.bat.
C:\ahven-2.1>janusada\prepare.bat
Before compiling the library, you need to run the preparation script janusada\prepare.bat. Then, scan the sources and create compilation script by running janusada\update.bat.
C:\ahven-2.1>janusada\update.bat
Now you are ready to compile the project. This happens by running compile.bat script.
C:\ahven-2.1>janusada\compile.bat
After a while, you should have compiled library files in the lib_obj directory and an executable called tap_test.exe in the test_obj directory. The executable is Ahven’s test suite and if it reports no errors, everything is working as expected.
At the time of writing (Ahven 2.1), every test should pass with the latest version of Janus/Ada.
However, with earlier versions of Janus/Ada some tests will fail. The failing tests are worked around in Ahven’s source code, but the test exists so that one can verify when the Janus/Ada bug causing the failure is fixed.
The heart of Ahven is an abstract type called Test. It presents an entity which can be run by a test runner. Types Test_Case and Test_Suite are derived from the Test type. The Test_Case type is the base type for unit tests and the Test_Suite type is a container, which can hold other Test objects.
To create a new test case you need to create a new package and a new type, which is derived from Ahven.Framework.Test_Case. There are no required functions or procedures to be implemented, but to make the test case do something you need to override the Initialize procedure and create at least one procedure which tests something:
-- my_tests.ads
with Ahven.Framework;
package My_Tests is
type Test is new Ahven.Framework.Test_Case with null record;
procedure Initialize (T : in out Test);
private
procedure Test_Addition;
end My_Tests;
To add tests to the test case you need to call procedure Ahven.Framework.Add_Test_Routine during the test case initialization (in other words, in the Initialize procedure). A test case package body shows how the Test_Addition is added to the test case. It also shows how to set a name for the test case with the Set_Name procedure.
-- my_tests.adb
package body My_Tests is
procedure Initialize (T : in out Test) is
begin
Set_Name (T, "My tests");
Ahven.Framework.Add_Test_Routine
(T, Test_Addition'Access, "Addition");
end Initialize;
procedure Test_Addition is
begin
null;
end Test_Addition;
end My_Tests;
To test whether a condition is true or false, Ahven offers you three procedures. The first procedure is Ahven.Assert. It takes a boolean value and a message string as its parameters. If the boolean value is false the Assert raises an Assertion_Error exception with the given string. The exception is catched by the framework. and when the test results are shown the error is also shown with the given message.
Another assertion procedure is a generic Ahven.Assert_Equal procedure. It is meant for comparing two objects of same type. If the objects are not equal the Assertion_Error exception with the given message string is raised.
The third assertion procedure is simple Ahven.Fail which always raises the Assertion_Error exception. It is handy for situations where the execution should not reach a certain place (see Fail in action).
package body My_Tests is
...
procedure Test_My_Proc is
begin
begin
My_Proc (-1); -- should raise Custom_Error
Fail ("Custom_Error expected");
exception
when Custom_Error =>
null; -- expected
-- Note: the exception block should not
-- catch Assertion_Error. Otherwise
-- the assertion failure will not be noticed.
end;
end Test_My_Proc;
end My_Tests;
The Test_Suite type is used to group related tests together. You can also add other test suites to the suite and create a hierarchy of tests.
The tests are added to the test suite using either procedure Add_Static_Test or Add_Test. The former procedure is meant for statically created tests and it places a copy of the given test to the test suite. The Add_Test procedure is used with dynamically created tests and test objects of type Test_Class_Access.
At the moment, the dynamically added tests are executed first in the order they have been added (first in, first out - FIFO) and after them the statically added tests, also in FIFO order.
Suite Example shows how to put test cases in a test suite.
package body My_Tests is
...
function Get_Test_Suite return Ahven.Framework.Test_Suite is
S : Framework.Test_Suite := Framework.Create_Suite ("All");
Hello_World_Test : Hello_World.Test;
Listener_Test : Basic_Listener_Tests.Test;
begin
Framework.Add_Static_Test (S, Hello_World_Test);
Framework.Add_Static_Test (S, Listener_Test);
return S;
end Get_Test_Suite;
end My_Tests;
The tests are run by test runners. These runners are procedures which take either test cases or test suites as their parameters.
Currently, there exists three test runners. Ahven.Runner is the basic runner, which prints the test results as a hierarchy. Ahven.XML_Runner on the other hand writes the test results to an XML file, which is understood by continuous integration systems like CruiseControl and Hudson. The third runner is Ahven.Tap_Runner. It produces the results in Test-Anything-Protocol (TAP) format.
The recommended way to use these test runners is to call them from the main program:
with Ahven.Text_Runner;
with Ahven.Framework;
with Simple_Tests;
procedure Tester is
S : Ahven.Framework.Test_Suite := Ahven.Framework.Create_Suite ("All");
begin
Ahven.Framework.Add_Test (S, new Simple_Tests.Test);
Ahven.Text_Runner.Run (S);
end Tester;