ppx_inline_test

Syntax extension for writing in-line tests in ocaml code.

New syntactic constructs

The following constructs are now valid structure items:

let%test "name" = <boolean expr> (* true means ok, false or exn means broken *)
let%test_unit "name" = <unit expr> (* () means ok, exn means broken *)
module%test Name = <module_expr>  (* to group tests, e.g. to share setup *)
module%test [@name "name"] _ = <module_expr>  (* more flexible naming *)
let%test_module "name" = (module <module-expr>) (* legacy module syntax *)

We may write _ instead of "name" for anonymous tests. It is also possible to use [%name <string expr>] for a dynamically computed name.

When running tests, they will be executed when the control flow reaches the structure item (i.e. at toplevel for a toplevel test; when the functor is applied for a test defined in the body of a functor, etc.).

Tags

One can tag tests with the following construct:

let%test "name" [@tags "no-js"] = <expr>
let%test "name" [@tags "no-js", "other-tag"] = <expr>
let%test _ [@tags "no-js"] = <expr>
let%test _ [@tags "js-only"] = <expr>

Available tags are:

• no-js for tests that should not run when compiling OCaml to Javascript

• js-only for tests that should only run in Javascript

• 32-bits-only for tests that should only run in 32 bits architectures

• 64-bits-only for tests that should only run in 64 bits architectures

• fast-flambda for tests that might only pass when compiling with flambda or flambda2, -O3, and cross library inlining

• fast-flambda2 for tests that might only pass when compiling with flambda2, -O3, and cross library inlining

• x-library-inlining-sensitive for tests that might only pass when compiling with cross library inlining switched on

• disabled for tests that should not run (unless requested with -require-tag)

• runtime4-only for tests that should not run when compiling with runtime5

• runtime5-only for tests that should only run when compiling with runtime5

One can also tag entire test modules similarly:

module%test Name [@tags "no-js"] = struct end

The flags -drop-tag and -require-tag can be passed to the test runner to restrict which tests are run. We say the tags of a test are the union of the tags applied directly to that test using [@tags ...] and the tags of all enclosing modules. It is to this union that the predicates -drop-tag and -require-tag are applied.

If it is clear, from a test-module's tags, that none of the tests within will possibly match the tag predicates imposed by the command line flags, then additionally the top-level of that module will not be run.

Examples

prime.ml

let is_prime = <magic>

let%test _ = is_prime 5
let%test _ = is_prime 7
let%test _ = not (is_prime 1)
let%test _ = not (is_prime 8)

Tests in a functor.

module Make(C : S) = struct
     <magic>
     let%test _ = <some expression>
end

module M = Make(Int)

Grouping test and side-effecting initialisation.

Since the module defined under module%test is only initialised when we run the tests, it is ok to perform side-effects in the module-expression argument.

module%test _ = struct
  module UID = Unique_id.Int(struct end)

  let%test _ = UID.create() <> UID.create()
end

Building and running the tests with Dune

Inline tests can only be used in libraries, not executables.

To use this with dune, see dune's documentation. At the time of writing of the current document, the short version is:

• define a library this way:

(library
  (name foo)
  (inline_tests)
  (preprocess (pps ppx_inline_test)))

• add tests to it
• call dune runtest

Building and running the tests without Dune

Code using this extension must be compiled and linked using the ppx_inline_test.runtime-lib library. The ppx_inline_test syntax extension will reject any test if it wasn't passed a -inline-test-lib libname flag.

Execution

Tests are only executed when both these conditions are met:

• the executable containing the tests is linked with ppx_inline_test.runner.lib

• the executable containing the tests is called with command line arguments:

  your.exe inline-test-runner libname [options]

This libname is a way of restricting the tests run by the executable. The dependencies of your library (or executable) could also use ppx_inline_test, but you don't necessarily want to run their tests too. For instance, core is built by giving -inline-test-lib core and core_extended is built by giving -inline-test-lib core_extended. And now when an executable linked with both core and core_extended is run with a libname of core_extended, only the tests of core_extended are run.

Finally, after running tests, Ppx_inline_test_lib.exit () should be called (to exit with an error and a summary of the number of failed tests if there were errors or exit normally otherwise).

One can construct a dual-use binary that only runs the tests when prompted to (through the command line), by sticking the following piece of code in it, after the tests have run but before the binary starts doing non-test side effects. However be aware that Base.am_testing will be true even when not running tests, which may be undesirable.

match Ppx_inline_test_lib.testing () with
| `Testing `Am_test_runner ->
  print_endline "Exiting test suite";
  Ppx_inline_test_lib.exit ()
| `Testing _ -> exit 0
| `Not_testing -> ()

Command line arguments

The executable that runs tests can take additional command line arguments. The most useful of these are:

• -stop-on-error

  Stop running tests after the first error.

• -verbose

  to see the tests as they run

• -only-test location

  where location is either a filename -only-test main.ml, a filename with a line number -only-test main.ml:32, or with the syntax that the compiler uses: File "main.ml", or File "main.ml", line 32 or File "main.ml", line 32, characters 2-6 (characters are ignored). The position that matters is the position of the let%test or let%test_unit.

  The positions shown by -verbose are valid inputs for -only-test.

  If no -only-test flag is given, all the tests are run. Otherwise all the tests matching any of the locations are run.

• -drop-tag tag

  drop all the tests tagged with tag.

These can be specified to jenga like this:

(library
  (...
   (inline_tests ((flags (-stop-on-error))))
   ...
  ))

and to dune like this:

(library
  ...
  (inline_tests (flags (-stop-on-error)))
  ...)

Parallelizing tests

If you pass arguments of the form -inline-test-lib lib:partition to ppx_inline_test, then you will be able to run tests from a given source file in parallel with tests from other source files. All the tests inside the same source file are still run sequentially.

You should pick different partition names for the different files in your library (the name of the .ml files for instance).

ppx_inline_test_lib currently requires some external system like a build system to run it multiple times in parallel, although we may make it possible to run the inline tests in parallel directly in the future.

If you do that, you can now use two new flags of the executable containing the tests:

• -list-partitions

  lists all the partitions that contain at least one test, one per line.

• -partition P

  only run the tests of the library that are encountered at toplevel of the source file that was preprocessed with the given partition P (the tests need not be syntactically in the file, they could be the result of applying a functor)

A build system can combine these two commands by first listing partitions, and then running one command for each partition.

Inline test code in executable artifacts

Inline tests are only run when the inline-test-runner executable is linked. ppx_inline_test is set up so that, with a high optimization level, the native compiler is able to dead-code eliminate tests from the produced executable artifacts during native builds.

For js_of_ocaml, however, the dead-code elimination needs a bit more help, which can be done by statically setting an environment variable under js_of_ocaml builds in your dune file:

(js_of_ocaml (flags (:standard --setenv FORCE_DROP_INLINE_TEST=true)))