Adam Kennedy wrote: > I'd also add a small warning in that Apache::Test does seem to want to > dominate the entire test suite (run everything from TEST) and so may not > be as suitable in cases where you have 50-500 test scripts already, and > you just want a few to work with Apache::Test and a normal Makefile.PL > built with something like Module::Install. > > So I've had to limit my use of it to specific cases where mod_perl > dominates the purpose of the entire distribution. > > Unless you've fixed this since the tutorial :) > > Because I really don't mind the cost of having to boot up TEST 4 times > for 4 scripts, when only 4 out of 100 need it.
well, there's no harm in using Apache-Test to run _everything_, even if only 4 out of 100 test scripts need the apache server - it's not like t/TEST adds any real overhead to the process, since _something_ needs to call runtests... but if you are talking about "test-code-test-code-test" overhead, where A-T starts and stops the server each time even if you don't need it and you're a developer who only wants to run a single script, then yeah, I hear ya :) in truth, that was the biggest complaint about A-T from the developers here at work - when you don't need apache and only want to run a single test over and over again it just takes too long. so, a few things were added to Apache-Test to try to remedy this... the first is that you can pass -no-httpd to Apache-Test, like so $ export APACHE_TEST_EXTRA_ARGS=-no-httpd $ make test TEST_FILES=t/noapache.t [ no server configuration or startup ] which saves a boatload of time. you can actually speed things up even more by using the 'make run_tests' target instead of 'make test' - the test target runs a full clean scan to hook the autogenerated A-T magic each time, which you obviously don't need if you're not interested in A-T. so, use both of those techniques and you'll find the overhead gets very low. I'll warn you, though, you're going to get bitten by -no-httpd and/or run_tests eventually. some day, you're going to try to run the apache-based tests and you'll have -no-httpd in your environment and things will blow up and you'll spend half a day trying to figure out why. or you'll add a new A-T test file and use run_tests and the test won't work and you will scratch your head. so you'll curse A-T and it's magic for a while... anyway, HTH. and I wish there were more time in life that I could communicate all this greatness to the masses in some talk or docs, but there just isn't (for me, anyway...) --Geoff
