Lux (LUcid eXpect scripting) provides scripting with an
Expect-style execution of commands in a powerful but simple
fashion. See [Expect][] for more info about the origin.
With Lux it is possible to
- simplify automated testing
- control interactive programs by sending textual input to them and using [regular expression][]s to ensure that their output matches the expectations
- perform detailed post mortem analyzis of test suite results
- interactively debug and trace single test cases
- get editor support for editing scripts by using the [Emacs][] mode
The tool is written in [Erlang/OTP][] and requires its runtime environment.
See the file lux.html for the full documentation or view it online on GitHub.
Here is an example of a test script (lux/examples/intro.lux). It
starts couple of concurrent shells and sends text to them with the
! command and matches expected output with ?.
[doc Test of single and multi line regular expressions] # A global variable is accessible in all shells [global file=removeme.txt] [shell single] # The terminal echoes all input !echo foo ?echo foo [shell multi] # bar is indented 4 characters !echo "foo" > $file !echo " bar" >> $file !echo "fum" >> $file !cat $file # The first double quote char defines the # first column of the multi line regexp """? foo bar fum """ # Let single be the active shell again [shell single] ?^foo # Cleanup is always executed, regardless of the script succeeds or fails [cleanup] # Match of command exit status. Observe the double dollar sign. !rm -f $file !echo ==$$?== ?^==0==
Run a single script like this:
/home/hm> lux lux/examples/intro.lux summary log : /home/hm/lux_logs/run_2012_03_22_12_44_42/lux_summary.log test case : /home/hm/lux/examples/intro.lux progress : ..:..:....:.....:...:...:..:..:..:.....c......:...:...:..:.... result : SUCCESS successful : 1 summary : SUCCESS file:///home/hm/lux_logs/run_2012_03_22_12_44_42/lux_summary.log.html /home/hm>
In this run we got a (brief) progress report of the test case on stdout and a link to a summary log containing (lots of) details. How to assemble the history of multiple runs
In a nightly build environment it might be difficult to pinpoint when
a certain test case/suite started to fail. This process is greatly
simplified by running lux with the --history option as it will
assemble all test results as a timeline (interleaved with changeset
identities if provided with --revision).
/home/hm> lux --revision svn_4711 --run jenkins_17 lux/examples /home/hm> lux --revision svn_4712 --run jenkins_20 lux/examples/intro.lux /home/hm> lux --revision svn_4712 --run jenkins_20 lux/examples/fail.lux /home/hm> lux --revision svn_4715 --run jenkins_22 lux/examples /home/hm> lux --history . Assembling history of logs in /home/hm.......4 test runs...ok file:///home/hm/lux_history.html