ATF(7)						       BSD Miscellaneous Information Manual						    ATF(7)

NAME

     ATF -- introduction to the Automated Testing Framework

DESCRIPTION

     IMPORTANT: If you are here because you want to know how to run the tests in /usr/tests, you most likely want to read the tests(7) manual page
     instead.

     The Automated Testing Framework (ATF) is a collection of libraries and utilities designed to ease unattended application testing in the hands
     of developers and end users of a specific piece of software.

     As regards developers, ATF provides the necessary means to easily create test suites composed of multiple test programs, which in turn are a
     collection of test cases.	It also attempts to simplify the debugging of problems when these test cases detect an error by providing as much
     information as possible about the failure.

     As regards users, it simplifies the process of running the test suites and, in special, encourages end users to run them often: they do not
     need to have source trees around nor any other development tools installed to be able to certify that a given piece of software works on
     their machine as advertised.

     If your operating systems distributes ATF, it is possible that it provides an introductory tests(7) manual page.  You are encouraged to read
     it now.

   License
     ATF is distributed under the terms of the TNF License, a 2-clause BSD license.  For more details please see:

	   /usr/share/doc/atf/COPYING

   Components
     ATF is a highly modular piece of software.  It provides a couple of libraries to ease the implementation of test programs: one for the C and
     C++ languages and another one for shell scripts.  It also includes multiple small utilities that follow the principle of doing a single thing
     but doing it right.  This section outlines which these components are.

     Public utilities:

     atf-check(1)	    Executes a command and checks that its exit code, its standard output and its standard error output match pre-speci-
			    fied expected values.

     atf-config(1)	    Queries static configuration information.

     atf-report(1)	    Converts the output of atf-run to user-friendly and/or machine-parseable reports.

     atf-run(1) 	    Automates the execution of a series of test programs and collects their results in a unified report.

     atf-sh(1)		    Shell interpreter for shell-based test programs.

     Programming interfaces:

     atf-c-api(3)	    C programming interface for test programs.

     atf-c++-api(3)	    C++ programming interface for test programs.

     atf-sh-api(3)	    POSIX shell programming interface for test programs.

     Other:

     atf-formats(5)	    Description of the machine-parseable data formats used by the tools.

     atf-test-case(4)	    Generic description of test cases, independent of the language they are implemented in.

     atf-test-program(1)    Common interface provided by the test programs written using the ATF libraries.

   Recommended reading order
     For end users wishing to run tests:
     1.   tests(7) (only if provided by your operating system).
     2.   atf-test-program(1)
     3.   atf-run(1)
     4.   atf-report(1)
     5.   atf-config(1)

     For developers wanting to write their own tests:
     1.   Everything recommended to users.
     2.   atf-test-case(4)
     3.   atf-c-api(3)
     4.   atf-c++-api(3)
     5.   atf-sh-api(3)
     6.   atf-sh(1)
     7.   atf-check(1)

     For those interested in ATF internals:
     1.   Everything recommended to users.
     2.   Everything recommended to developers.
     3.   atf-formats(5)

SEE ALSO

     tests(7)

HISTORY

     ATF started as a Google Summer of Code 2007 project mentored by The NetBSD Foundation.  Its original goal was to provide a testing framework
     for The NetBSD Operating System, but it grew as an independent project because the framework itself did not need to be tied to a specific
     operating system.

     For more details on this subject, please see:

	   /usr/share/doc/atf/NEWS
	   /usr/share/doc/atf/ROADMAP

AUTHORS

     For more details on the people that made ATF possible, please see:

	   /usr/share/doc/atf/AUTHORS

BSD
								  August 28, 2010							       BSD