Unit Testing in Lisp

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Source Location

The CLforJava lisp test-driver, and lisp tests can be found in the source repository, along with the "suite" files.

Function directories:

• CLforJava\test\src\lisp\sequences
• CLforJava\test\src\lisp\conses
• CLforJava\test\src\lisp\strings
• CLforJava\test\src\lisp\format

Test Case Layout

*Every individual test case will be stored solitarily in a list which contains all the test cases

The format of each test case is as follows:

The example given is the test case for the function CAAR which takes the CAR (which is the first element of a list) of the CAR of a list.

For example (CAAR '( (1 2 3) (4 5 6) (7 8 9) )) would take the CAR of ( (1 2 3) (4 5 6) (7 8 9) )

which is the list (1 2 3)

It would than take the CAR of this list (1 2 3)

which is 1

So (CAAR '( (1 2 3) (4 5 6) (7 8 9) )) would return 1

In order to write a test case for this function you would use the following format:

( defun test-case-sample () ( equalitytest ( functionname args ) returnvalue ) &optional seffects )

EQUALITYTEST

whatever variation of equal, eql, etc. you choose to use to compare the expected and actual ouput of the function that is being tested

FUNCTIONNAME

name of the function you'd like to test

ARGS

a list of args to pass it

RETURNVALUE

expected return value

SEFFECTS

optional a function specific test to determine expected sideffects. Should return a generalized boolean

So in the case of CAAR the test case would appear as:

(defun caar-test-1 () (equal (caar '((1 2 3) (2 3 4) (3 4 5))) 1))

*programmers will want to make sure which equal, eql, etc. variation is appropiate for each individual case

How to add your Test Case

• Check to see if the function you are testing already has a file under the correct directory. (e.g. <function>-test.lsp)
• Situation 1- There is an existing test file
  Simply add your new case to the existing file
• Situation 2- There is no test file
  Create a new file: <function>-test.lsp, add it to the correct directory
  Add the function to the defvar list inside the respective suite file

How to add a Suite

• Create a new directory (e.g. CLforJava\test\src\lisp\<function-type>\)
• Add a suite file in the main directory (e.g. CLforJava\test\src\lisp\<function-type>-suite.lsp\)
• Add another section to CLforJava\build\BuildEntities\runLispTest.xml
• Note: Reference the conses-suite.lsp & conses section in runLispTests.xml for examples

Status

The current status of the testing suites can be viewed on the QAStatus page

http://clforjava.org/twiki/bin/view/DevEnvironment/QAStatus

-- AveryScott - 31 Jan 2008 -- MatthewMerricks - 12 Feb 2008 -- RyanMoore - 07 May 2010