NAME

       Test::Files - A Test::Builder based module to ease testing with files and dirs

SYNOPSIS

           use Test::More tests => 5;
           use Test::Files;
           use File::Spec;

           my $some_file  = File::Spec->catfile( qw/ path to some file / );
           my $other_file = File::Spec->catfile( qw/ path to other file / );
           my $some_dir   = File::Spec->catdir ( qw/ some dir / );
           my $other_dir  = File::Spec->catdir ( qw/ dir with same stuff / );

           file_ok($some_file, "contents\nof file", "some file has contents");

           file_filter_ok(
               $some_file,
               "filtered contents\nof file",
               \&filter,
               "some file has contents"
           );

           compare_ok($some_file, $other_file, "files are the same");
           compare_filter_ok(
                   $file1, $file2, \&filter, "they're almost the same"
           );

           dir_contains_ok(
                   $some_dir,
                   [qw(files some_dir must contain)],
                   "$some_dir has all files in list"
           );

           dir_only_contains_ok(
               $some_dir,
               [qw(files some_dir should contain)],
               "$some_dir has exactly the files in the list"
           );

           compare_dirs_ok($some_dir, $other_dir);
           compare_dirs_filter_ok($some_dir, $other_dir, \&filter_fcn);

ABSTRACT

         Test::Builder based test helper for file and directory contents.

DESCRIPTION

       This module is like Test::More, in fact you should use that first as shown above.  It
       exports

       file_ok
           compare the contents of a file to a string

       file_filter_ok
           compare the contents of a file to a string, but filter the file first.  (You must
           filter your own string if needed.)

       compare_ok
           compare the contents of two files

       compare_filter_ok
           compare the contents of two files, but sends each line through a filter so things that
           shouldn't count against success can be stripped

       dir_contains_ok
           checks a directory for the presence of a list files

       dir_contains_only_ok
           checks a directory to ensure that the listed files are present and that they are the
           only ones present

       compare_dirs_ok
           compares all text files in two directories reporting any differences

       compare_dirs_filter_ok
           works like compare_dirs_ok, but calls a filter function on each line of input,
           allowing you to exclude or alter some text to avoid spurious failures (like timestamp
           disagreements).

       Though the SYNOPSIS examples don't all have names, you can and should provide a name for
       each test.  Names are omitted above only to reduce clutter and line widths.

       You should follow the lead of the SYNOPSIS examples and use File::Spec.  This makes it
       much more likely that your tests will pass on a different operating system.

       All of the content comparison routines provide diff diagnostic output when they report
       failure.  Currently that diff output is always in table form and can't be changed.

       Most of the functions are self explanatory.  One exception is "compare_dirs_filter_ok"
       which compares two directory trees, like "compare_dirs_ok" but with a twist.  The twist is
       a filter which each line is fed through before comparison.  I wanted this because some
       files are really the same, but look different textually.  In particular, I was comparing
       files with machine generated dates.  Everything in them was identical, except those dates.

       The filter function receives each line of each file.  It may perform any necessary
       transformations (like excising dates), then it must return the line in (possibly)
       transformed state.  For example, my first filter was

           sub chop_dates {
               my $line = shift;
               $line =~ s/\d{4}(.\d\d){5}//;
               return $line;
           }

       This removes all strings like 2003.10.14.14.17.37.  Everything else is unchanged and my
       failing tests started passing when they shold.  If you want to exclude the line from
       consideration, return "" (do not return undef, that makes it harder to chain filters
       together and might lead to warnings).

       "compare_filter_ok" works in a similar manner for a single file comparison, while
       "file_filter_ok" filters the file before comparing it to your unfiltered string.

       The test suite has examples of the use of each function and what the output looks like on
       failure, though it that doesn't necessarily make them easy to read.

   BUGS
       "compare_dirs_ok" and "compare_dirs_filter_ok" do not test for whether the first directory
       has all the files that are in the second.  If you care about missing files in the first
       direcotry, you must also call "dir_contains_ok" or "dir_contains_only_ok".  The
       "compare_dirs_*" routines do notice when the second directory does not have a files that
       the first one has.

   EXPORT
           file_ok
           file_filter_ok
           compare_ok
           compare_filter_ok
           dir_contains_ok
           dir_only_contains_ok
           compare_dirs_ok
           compare_dirs_filter_ok

DEPENDENCIES

           Test::Builder
           Test::More
           Text::Diff
           Algorithm::Diff
           Test::Builder::Tester (used only during testing)

SEE ALSO

       Consult Test::Simple, Test::More, and Test::Builder for more testing help.  This module
       really just adds functions to what Test::More does.

AUTHOR

       Phil Crow, <philcrow2000@yahoo.com<gt>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright 2003-2007 by Phil Crow

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
       terms as Perl 5.8.1 itself.