3 \mainpage Visual and Interactive Test Automation for SDL 2.0
5 \section license_sec License
6 Check the file \c COPYING.txt for licensing information.
8 \section intro_sec Introduction
9 The goal of this GSoC project is to automate the testing of testsprite2.
10 testsprite2 takes 26 parameters which have thousands of valid combinations and is
11 used to validate SDL's window, mouse and rendering behaviour. By having a test
12 harness that runs testsprite2 with various command line argument strings and
13 validates the output for each run, we can make testing an easier task for
14 maintainers, contributors and testers. The test harness can be used by a continuous
15 integration system (like buildbot or jenkins) to validate SDL after checkins.
17 SDL Homepage: http://libsdl.org/
19 \section build_sec Building
21 \subsection build_linux Building on Linux/Cygwin
22 <tt>./autogen.sh; ./configure; make;</tt>
24 \subsection build_windows Building on Windows
25 Use the Visual Studio solution under \c SDL/VisualC/visualtest.
27 \section docs_sec Documentation
28 Documentation is available via Doxygen. To build the documentation, cd to the
29 SDL/visualtest/docs directory and run \c doxygen. A good starting point for
30 exploring the documentation is \c SDL/visualtest/docs/html/index.html
32 \section usage_sec Usage
33 To see all the options supported by the test harness, just run \c testharness
36 At the moment the following options are supported:
37 \li \c sutapp - Path to the system under test (SUT) application
38 \li \c sutargs - Launch the SUT with the specified arguments string
39 \li \c timeout - The maximum time after which the SUT process will be killed;
40 passed as hh:mm:ss; default 00:01:00
41 \li \c variator - Which variator to use; see \ref variators_sec
42 \li \c num-variations - The number of variations to run for; taken to be
43 1 for the random variator and ALL for the exhaustive variator by default
44 \li \c no-launch - Just print the arguments string for each variation without
45 launching the SUT or performing any actions
46 \li \c parameter-config - A config file that describes the command line parameters
47 supported by the SUT; see \ref paramconfig_sec or the sample *.parameters files
49 \li \c action-config - A config file with a list of actions to be performed while
50 the SUT is running; see \ref actionconfig_sec or the sample *.actions files
51 \li \c output-dir - Path to the directory where screenshots should be saved; is
52 created if it doesn't exist; taken to be "./output" by default
53 \li \c verify-dir - Path to the directory with the verification images; taken to
54 be "./verify" by default
56 Paths can be relative or absolute.
58 Alternatively, the options can be passed as a config file for convenience:
60 <tt>testharness \-\-config testsprite2_sample.config</tt>
62 For a sample, take a look at the *.config files in this repository.
64 We can also pass a config file and override certain options as necessary:
65 <tt>testharness \-\-config testsprite2_sample.config \-\-num-variations 10</tt>
67 Note: You may find it convenient to copy the SUT executable along with any
68 resources to the test harness directory. Also note that testsprite2 and its
69 resources (icon.bmp) are automatically copied when using the Visual Studio
72 \subsection usageexamples_subsec Usage examples:
74 Passing a custom arguments string:
75 <tt>testharness \-\-sutapp testsprite2 \-\-sutargs "\-\-cyclecolor \-\-blend mod
76 \-\-iterations 2" \-\-action-config xyz.actions</tt>
78 Using the random variator:
79 <tt>testharness \-\-sutapp testsprite2 \-\-variator random \-\-num-variations 5
80 \-\-parameter-config xyz.parameters \-\-action-config xyz.actions</tt>
82 \subsection config_subsec Config Files
83 Config files are an alternate way to pass parameters to the test harness. We
84 describe the paramters in a config file and pass that to the test harness using
85 the \-\-config option. The config file consists of lines of the form "x=y" where
86 x is an option and y is it's value. For boolean options, we simply give the name
87 of the option to indicate that it is to be passed to the testharness.
89 The hash '#' character can be used to start a comment from that point to the end
92 \section paramconfig_sec The SUT Parameters File
93 To generate variations we need to describe the parameters the will be passed to
94 the SUT. This description is given in a parameters file. Each line of the parameters
95 file (except the blank lines) represents one command line option with five
96 comma separated fields:
97 <tt>name, type, values, required, categories</tt>
99 \li \c name is the name of the option, e.g., \c \-\-cyclecolor.
100 \li \c type can have one of three values - integer, boolean and enum.
101 \li \c values - for integer options this is the valid range of values the option
102 can take, i.e., [min max]. For enum options this is a list of strings that
103 the option can take, e.g., [val1 val2 val3]. For boolean options this field
105 \li \c required - true if the option is required, false otherwise.
106 \li \c categories - a list of categories that the option belongs to. For example,
109 Just like with config files, hash characters can be used to start comments.
111 \subsection additionalnotes_subsec Additional Notes
113 \li If you want to have an option that always takes a certain value, use an enum
115 \li Currently there isn't any way to turn an option off, i.e., all options will
116 be included in the command line options string that is generated using the
117 config. If you don't want an option to be passed to the SUT, remove it from
118 the config file or comment it out.
120 \section variators_sec Variators
121 Variators are the mechanism by which we generate strings of command line arguments
122 to test the SUT with. A variator is quite simply an iterator that iterates through
123 different variations of command line options. There are two variators supported at
125 \li \b Exhaustive - Generate all possible combinations of command line arguments
127 \li \b Random - Generate a random variation each time the variator is called.
129 As an example, let's try a simple .parameters file:\n
131 \-\-blend, enum, [add mod], false, [] \n
132 \-\-fullscreen, boolean, [], false, []
135 The exhaustive variator would generate the following four variations:\n
139 \-\-blend add \-\-fullscreen \n
140 \-\-blend mod \-\-fullscreen \n
143 The random variator would simply generate a random variation like the following:\n
144 <tt>\-\-blend mod</tt>
146 \section actionconfig_sec The Actions File
147 Once the SUT process has been launched, automated testing happens using a mechanism
148 called actions. A list of actions is read from a file and each action is performed
149 on the SUT process sequentially. Each line in the actions file describes an action.
150 The format for an action is <tt>hh:mm:ss ACTION_NAME additional parameters</tt>.
151 There are five actions supported at the moment:
152 \li \b SCREENSHOT - Takes a screenshot of each window owned by the SUT process. The
153 images are saved as \c [hash]_[i].bmp where \c [hash] is the 32 character long
154 hexadecimal MD5 hash of the arguments string that was passed to the SUT while
155 launching it and \c i is the window number. i = 1 is an exceptional case
156 where the \c _[i] is dropped and the filename is simply \c [hash].bmp\n
157 Note: The screenshots are only of the window's client area.
158 \li \b VERIFY - Verifies the screenshots taken by the last SCREENSHOT action by
159 comparing them against a verification image. Each \c [hash]_i.bmp image output
160 by the SCREENSHOT action is compared against a \c [hash].bmp image in the
162 \li \b QUIT - Gracefully quits the SUT process. On Windows this means sending a
163 WM_CLOSE message to each window owned by the SUT process. On Linux it means
164 sending a SIGQUIT signal to the SUT process.
165 \li \b KILL - Forcefully kills the SUT process. This is useful when the SUT process
166 doesn't respond to the QUIT action.
167 \li <b>LAUNCH [/path/to/executable] [args]</b> - Runs an executable with \c [args]
168 as the arguments string.
170 Just like with config files, hash characters can be used to start comments.
172 \section contint_sec Continuous Integration (CI)
173 One of the goals of the project was to create a test harness that integrates
174 with CI systems to provide automated visual and interactive testing to SDL.
176 At the moment the test harness can be run in two modes that are useful for CI:
177 \li Crash testing mode - launch the SUT with every variation and all parameters,
178 report to the CI if there's a crash
179 \li Visual testing mode - launch and visually verify the SUT for a smaller subset
182 Look at the launch_harness.sh/launch_harness.cmd for an example scripts that run the
183 test harness for all variations with all parameters and report an error on a crash.
184 The script uses the testsprite2_crashtest config, so remember to copy those files
185 over to the test harness executable directory along with the script.
187 \section todo_sec TODOs
188 \li Allow specifying a clipping box along with the VERIFY action, i.e., hh:mm:ss
190 \li Add support for spaces between the equals sign in test harness config files
191 \li Implement the SCREENSHOT action on Linux
192 \li Add a pairwise variator
193 \li Add actions to inject keyboard/mouse events
194 \li Add actions to manipulate the SUT window, e.g., minimize, restore, resize
195 \li Add support to load and save screenshots as .pngs instead of .bmps
197 \section issues_sec Known Issues
198 \li The QUIT action does not work on a testsprite2 process with multiple windows.
199 This appears to be an issue with testsprite2.
200 \li The SCREENSHOT action doesn't capture the testsprite2 window correctly if the
201 --fullscreen option is supplied. It works with --fullscreen-desktop, however.
203 \section moreinfo_sec More Information
205 Author Contact Info:\n
206 Apoorv Upreti \c \<apoorvupreti@gmail.com\>
209 - Project Repository: https://bitbucket.org/nerdap/sdlvisualtest
210 - Project Wiki: https://github.com/nerdap/autotestsprite2/wiki
211 - Project Blog: http://nerdap.github.io
212 - Verification images for testsprite2_blendmodes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nm02aem76m812ng/testsprite2_blendmodes.zip
213 - Verification images for testsprite2_geometry: https://www.dropbox.com/s/csypwryopaslpaf/testsprite2_geometry.zip