NAME

       Test::Command::Simple - Test external commands (nearly) as easily as loaded modules.

VERSION

       Version 0.05

SYNOPSIS

           use Test::Command::Simple;

           run('echo', 'has this output'); # only tests that the command can be started, not checking rc
           is(rc,0,'Returned successfully')
           like(stdout,qr/has this output/,'Testing stdout');
           is(length stderr, 0,'No stderr');

PURPOSE

       This test module is intended to simplify testing of external commands.  It does so by
       running the command under IPC::Open3, closing the stdin immediately, and reading
       everything from the command's stdout and stderr.  It then makes the output available to be
       tested.

       It is not (yet?) as feature-rich as Test::Cmd, but I think the interface to this is much
       simpler.  Tests also plug directly into the Test::Builder framework, which plays nice with
       Test::More.

       As compared to Test::Command, this module is simpler, relying on the user to feed rc,
       stdout, and stderr to the appropriate other tests, presumably in Test::More, but not
       necessarily.  This makes it possible, for example, to test line 3 of the output:

           my (undef, undef, $line) = split /\r?\n/, stdout;
           is($line, 'This is the third line', 'Test the third line');

       While this is possible to do with Test::Command's stdout_like, some regex's can get very
       awkward, and it becomes better to do this in multiple steps.

       Also, Test::Command saves stdout and stderr to files.  That has an advantage when you're
       saving a lot of text.  However, this module prefers to slurp everything in using
       IPC::Open3, IO::Select, and sysread.  Most of the time, commands being tested do not
       produce significant amounts of output, so there becomes no reason to use temporary files
       and involve the disk at all.

EXPORTS

   run
       Runs the given command.  It will return when the command is done.

       This will also reinitialise all of the states for stdout, stderr, and rc.  If you need to
       keep the values of a previous run() after a later one, you will need to store it.  This
       should be mostly pretty rare.

       Counts as one test: whether the IPC::Open3 call to open3 succeeded.  That is not returned
       in a meaningful way to the user, though.  To check if that's the case for purposes of
       SKIPping, rc will be set to -1.

   stdout
       Returns the last run's stdout

   stderr
       Returns the last run's stderr

   rc
       Returns the last run's full $?, suitable for passing to POSIX's :sys_wait_h macros
       (WIFEXITED, WEXITSTATUS, etc.)

   exit_status
       Returns the exit status of the last run

   run_ok
       Shortcut for checking that the return from a command is 0.  Will still set stdout and
       stderr for further testing.

       If the first parameter is an integer 0-255, then that is the expected return code instead.
       Remember: $? has both a return code (0-255) and a reason for exit embedded.  This function
       must make the assumption that you want a "normal" exit only.  If any signal is given, this
       will treat that as a failure.

       Note that this becomes three tests: one that IPC::Open3 could create the subprocess with
       the command, the next is the test that the process exited normally, and the last is the
       test of the rc.

AUTHOR

       Darin McBride, "<dmcbride at cpan.org>"

BUGS

       Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-test-command at rt.cpan.org", or
       through the web interface at
       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Test-Command-Simple>.  I will be notified,
       and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

       You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

           perldoc Test::Command::Simple

       You can also look for information at:

       •   RT: CPAN's request tracker

           <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Test-Command-Simple>

       •   AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

           <http://annocpan.org/dist/Test-Command-Simple>

       •   CPAN Ratings

           <http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Test-Command-Simple>

       •   Search CPAN

           <http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Command-Simple/>

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 2010 Darin McBride.

       This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
       either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or
       the Artistic License.

       See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.