CliRunnerContrib Contrib Package

The previous discussion has been moved to CliRunnerContribDev? .

This is a Contrib targeted at TWiki developers. It allows to run independent TWiki scripts from your TWiki code (mostly unit tests).

This Contrib requires the yet-to-be released TWiki version 4.1!

Note that the detailed documentation has been generated automatically by the TWiki:Plugins.BuildContrib, and would need care to be comprehensible. For use cases and examples, see the test cases file provided with this contrib, which are not in the distribution, but available from SVN.

Summary of Contents

This contrib describes a $runner object which allows to run TWiki scripts from your TWiki code in an independent process. The object methods allow to change the options, configuration, and module environment for the single request performed by the independent process. All other simultaneous TWiki operations remain unaffected.

Use Cases

The most important use cases for this contrib are "special" unit tests - tests which can neither be performed with TWiki's usual test case mechanisms, nor with LWP or browser tests:

1. Test cases where you want to change the set of available CPAN modules: This can't be done from conventional test cases because they all "see" the same Perl libraries, and once a module has been compiled it can't be removed. And it can't be done with browser tests because the browser has no access to your libraries. You could, of course, rename your CPAN library temporarily, but this may affect other users, or other services on the same computer.
2. Test cases where you need to run all checks and capture the complete output. Such tests could be done by capturing the output of e.g. do view; - but this would splatter the namespaces and global variables of the testing environment. That property is interesting for mod_perl like tests, but not for "usual" CGI simulation where every request runs in its own process.

Detailed Documentation

Settings

Settings are stored as preferences variables. To reference a setting write %<plugin>_<setting>%, e.g. %CLIRUNNERCONTRIB_STUB%

• One line description:
  • Set SHORTDESCRIPTION = Run independent TWiki scripts from your TWiki code (mostly unit tests)

• Name of the perl package
  • Set STUB = %$STUB%

Installation Instructions

• Download the ZIP file from the Plugin web (see below)
• Unzip CliRunnerContrib.zip in your twiki installation directory. Content:

  File:	Description:

• Run CliRunnerContrib_installer.pl to automatically check and install other modules that this module depends on. You can also do this step manually. Dependencies: %$DEPENDENCIES%

• Test if the installation was successful:
  • Run WebTestCasesAutoTests.pm in the test/unit directory. If the installation was successful, you see a couple of tests. The tests may not succeed, but this is another matter....

Contrib Info

-- TWiki:Main/HaraldJoerg - 21 Nov 2008