NAME

       Test::Regression - Test library that can be run in two modes; one to generate outputs and
       a second to compare against them

VERSION

       Version 0.08

SYNOPSIS

         use Test::Regression;

         ok_regression(sub {return "hello world"}, "t/out/hello_world.txt");

DESCRIPTION

       Using the various Test:: modules you can compare the output of a function against what you
       expect. However if the output is complex and changes from version to version, maintenance
       of the expected output could be costly. This module allows one to use the test code to
       generate the expected output, so that if the differences with model output are expected,
       one can easily refresh the model output.

EXPORT

       ok_regression

FUNCTIONS

   ok_regression
       This function requires two arguments: a CODE ref and a file path. The CODE ref is expected
       to return a SCALAR string which can be compared against previous runs. If the
       TEST_REGRESSION_GEN is set to a true value, then the CODE ref is run and the output
       written to the file. Otherwise the output of the file is compared against the contents of
       the file.  There is a third optional argument which is the test name.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

   TEST_REGRESSION_GEN
       If the TEST_REGRESSION_GEN environment file is unset or false in a perl sense, then the
       named output files must exist and be readable and the test will run normally comparing the
       outputs of the CODE refs against the contents of those files. If the environment variable
       is true in a perl sense, then model output files will be overwritten with the output of
       the CODE ref.

AUTHOR

       Nicholas Bamber, "<nicholas at periapt.co.uk>"

BUGS

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

   testing of STDERR
       The testing of stderr from this module is not as thorough as I would like.
       Test::Builder::Tester allows turning off of stderr checking but not matching by regular
       expression. Handcrafted efforts currently fall foul of Test::Harness. Still it is I
       believe adequately tested in terms of coverage.

SUPPORT

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

           perldoc Test::Regression

       You can also look for information at:

       •   RT: CPAN's request tracker

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

       •   AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

           <http://annocpan.org/dist/Test-Regression>

       •   CPAN Ratings

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

       •   Search CPAN

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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Some documentation improvements have been suggested by toolic
       (http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=622051).
       Thanks to Filip GraliXski for pointing out I need to test against output of zero length
       and providing a patch.
       Thanks to Christian Walde for pestering me about newline Windows compatibility issues and
       for providing a patch.

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

       Copyright 2009-10 Nicholas Bamber.

       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.