Welcome to LuaUnit’s documentation!

Introduction

LuaUnit is a unit-testing framework for Lua. It allows you to write test functions and test classes with test methods, combined with setup/teardown functionality. A wide range of assertions are supported.

LuaUnit supports several output format, like Junit or TAP, for easier integration into Continuous Integration platforms (Jenkins, Maven, ...) . The integrated command-line options provide a flexible interface to select tests by name or patterns, control output format, set verbosity, ...

Platform support

LuaUnit works with Lua 5.1, LuaJIT 2.0, LuaJIT 2.1 beta, Lua 5.2 and Lua 5.3 . It is tested on Windows Seven, Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) and Ubuntu 14.04 (see continuous build results on Travis-CI and AppVeyor ) and should work on all platforms supported by Lua. It has no other dependency than Lua itself.

LuaUnit is packed into a single-file. To make start using it, just add the file to your project. Other installation methods are described in the README.md file.

LuaUnit is maintained on github: https://github.com/bluebird75/luaunit

It is released under the BSD license.

Upgrade note

Important note when upgrading to version 3.1 and above : there is a break of backward compatibility in version 3.1, assertions functions are no longer exported directly to the global namespace. See Enabling global or module-level functions on how to adjust or restore previous behavior.

LuaUnit development

See Developing LuaUnit

Version and Changelog

This documentation describes the functionality of LuaUnit v3.2 .

New in version 3.2 - 12. Jul 2016

  • Add command-line option to stop on first error or failure
  • Distinguish between failures (failed assertion) and errors
  • Support for new versions: Lua 5.3 and LuaJIT (2.0, 2.1 beta)
  • Validation of all lua versions on Travis CI and AppVeyor
  • Add compatibility layer with forked luaunit v2.x
  • Added documentation about development process
  • Improved support for table containing keys of type table
  • Small bug fixes, several internal improvements
  • Available with a Luarock package

New in version 3.1 - 10. Mar 2015

  • luaunit no longer pollutes global namespace, unless defining EXPORT_ASSERT_TO_GLOBALS to true
  • fixes and validation of JUnit XML generation
  • strip luaunit internal information from stacktrace
  • general improvements of test results with duration and other details
  • improve printing for tables, with an option to always print table id
  • fix printing of recursive tables

Important note when upgrading to version 3.1 : assertions functions are no longer exported directly to the global namespace. See Enabling global or module-level functions

New in version 3.0 - 9. Oct 2014

Because LuaUnit was forked and released as some 2.x version, version number is now jumping to 3.0 .

  • full documentation available in text, html and pdf at read-the-docs.org
  • new output format: JUnit, compatible with Bamboo and other CI platforms
  • much better table assertions
  • new assertions for strings, with patterns and case insensitivity: assertStrContains, assertNotStrContains, assertNotStrIContains, assertStrIContains, assertStrMatches
  • new assertions for floats: assertAlmostEquals, assertNotAlmostEquals
  • type assertions: assertIsString, assertIsNumber, ...
  • error assertions: assertErrorMsgEquals, assertErrorMsgContains, assertErrorMsgMatches
  • improved error messages for several assertions
  • command-line options to select test, control output type and verbosity

New in version 1.5 - 8. Nov 2012

  • compatibility with Lua 5.1 and 5.2
  • better object model internally
  • a lot more of internal tests
  • several internal bug fixes
  • make it easy to customize the test output
  • running test functions no longer requires a wrapper
  • several level of verbosity

New in version 1.4 - 26. Jul 2012

  • switch from X11 to more popular BSD license
  • add TAP output format for integration into Jenkins
  • official repository now on github

New in version 1.3 - 30. Oct 2007

  • port to lua 5.1
  • iterate over the test classes, methods and functions in the alphabetical order
  • change the default order of expected, actual in assertEquals (adjustable with USE_EXPECTED_ACTUAL_IN_ASSERT_EQUALS).

Version 1.2 - 13. Jun 2005

  • first public release

Version 1.1

  • move global variables to internal variables
  • assertion order is configurable between expected/actual or actual/expected
  • new assertion to check that a function call returns an error
  • display the calling stack when an error is spotted
  • two verbosity level, like in python unittest

Getting started

Setting up your test script

To get started, create your file test_something.lua .

The script should import LuaUnit:

luaunit = require('luaunit')

The last line executes your script with LuaUnit and exit with the proper error code:

os.exit( luaunit.LuaUnit.run() )

Now, run your file with:

lua test_something.lua

It prints something like:

Ran 0 tests in 0 seconds
OK

Now, your testing framework is in place, you can start writing tests.

Writing tests

LuaUnit scans all variables that start with test or Test. If they are functions, or if they are tables that contain functions that start with test or Test, they are run as part of the test suite.

So just write a function whose name starts with test. Inside test functions, use the assertions functions provided by LuaUnit, such as assertEquals().

Let’s see that in practice.

Suppose you want to test the following add function:

function add(v1,v2)
    -- add positive numbers
    -- return 0 if any of the numbers are 0
    -- error if any of the two numbers are negative
    if v1 < 0 or v2 < 0 then
        error('Can only add positive or null numbers, received '..v1..' and '..v2)
    end
    if v1 == 0 or v2 == 0 then
        return 0
    end
    return v1+v2
end

You write the following tests:

function testAddPositive()
    luaunit.assertEquals(add(1,1),2)
end

function testAddZero()
    luaunit.assertEquals(add(1,0),0)
    luaunit.assertEquals(add(0,5),0)
    luaunit.assertEquals(add(0,0),0)
end

assertEquals() is the most common used assertion function. It simply verifies that both argument are equals, in the order actual value, expected value.

Rerun your test script (-v is to activate a more verbose output)

lua test_something.lua -v

It now prints:

Started on 03/10/15 16:45:41
    TestAdd.testAddPositive ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAddZero ... Ok
=========================================================
Ran 2 tests in 0.010 seconds
OK

You always have:

  • the date at which the test suite was started
  • the group to which the function belongs (usually, the name of the function table, and <TestFunctions> for all direct test functions)
  • the name of the function being executed
  • a report at the end, with number of executed test, number of non selected tests, number of failures, number of errors (if any) and duration.

The difference between failures and errors are:

  • luaunit assertion functions generate failures
  • any unexpected error during execution generates an error
  • failures or errors during setup() or teardown() always generate errors

You also want to test that when the function receives negative numbers, it generates an error. Use assertError() or even better, assertErrorMsgContains() to also validate the content of the error message. There are other types or error checking functions, see Error assertions . Here we use assertErrorMsgContains() . First argument is the expected message, then the function to call and the optional arguments:

function testAddError()
    luaunit.assertErrorMsgContains('Can only add positive or null numbers, received 2 and -3', add, 2, -3)
end

Now, suppose we also have the following function to test:

function adder(v)
    -- return a function that adds v to its argument using add
    function closure( x ) return x+v end
    return closure
end

We want to test the type of the value returned by adder and its behavior. LuaUnit provides assertion for type testing (see Type assertions). In this case, we use assertIsFunction():

function testAdder()
    f = adder(3)
    luaunit.assertIsFunction( f )
    luaunit.assertEquals( f(2), 5 )
end

Grouping tests, setup/teardown functionality

When the number of tests starts to grow, you usually organise them into separate groups. You can do that with LuaUnit by putting them inside a table (whose name must start with Test or test ).

For example, assume we have a second function to test:

function div(v1,v2)
    -- divide positive numbers
    -- return 0 if any of the numbers are 0
    -- error if any of the two numbers are negative
    if v1 < 0 or v2 < 0 then
        error('Can only divide positive or null numbers, received '..v1..' and '..v2)
    end
    if v1 == 0 or v2 == 0 then
        return 0
    end
    return v1/v2
end

We move the tests related to the function add into their own table:

TestAdd = {}
    function TestAdd:testAddPositive()
        luaunit.assertEquals(add(1,1),2)
    end

    function TestAdd:testAddZero()
        luaunit.assertEquals(add(1,0),0)
        luaunit.assertEquals(add(0,5),0)
        luaunit.assertEquals(add(0,0),0)
    end

    function TestAdd:testAddError()
        luaunit.assertErrorMsgContains('Can only add positive or null numbers, received 2 and -3', add, 2, -3)
    end

    function TestAdd:testAdder()
        f = adder(3)
        luaunit.assertIsFunction( f )
        luaunit.assertEquals( f(2), 5 )
    end
-- end of table TestAdd

Then we create a second set of tests for div:

TestDiv = {}
    function TestDiv:testDivPositive()
        luaunit.assertEquals(div(4,2),2)
    end

    function TestDiv:testDivZero()
        luaunit.assertEquals(div(4,0),0)
        luaunit.assertEquals(div(0,5),0)
        luaunit.assertEquals(div(0,0),0)
    end

    function TestDiv:testDivError()
        luaunit.assertErrorMsgContains('Can only divide positive or null numbers, received 2 and -3', div, 2, -3)
    end
-- end of table TestDiv

Execution of the test suite now looks like this:

Started on 03/10/15 16:47:33
    TestAdd.testAddError ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAddPositive ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAddZero ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAdder ... Ok
    TestDiv.testDivError ... Ok
    TestDiv.testDivPositive ... Ok
    TestDiv.testDivZero ... Ok
=========================================================
Ran 7 tests in 0.010 seconds
OK

When tests are defined in tables, you can optionally define two special functions, setUp() and tearDown(), which will be executed respectively before and after every test.

These function may be used to create specific resources for the test being executed and cleanup the test environment.

For a practical example, imagine that we have a log() function that writes strings to a log file on disk. The file is created upon first usage of the function, and the filename is defined by calling the function initLog().

The tests for these functions would take advantage of the setup/teardown functionality to prepare a log filename shared by all tests, make sure that all tests start with a non existing log file name, and erase the log filename after every test:

TestLogger = {}
    function TestLogger:setUp()
        -- define the fname to use for logging
        self.fname = 'mytmplog.log'
        -- make sure the file does not already exists
        os.remove(self.fname)
    end

    function TestLogger:testLoggerCreatesFile()
        initLog(self.fname)
        log('toto')
        -- make sure that our log file was created
        f = io.open(self.fname, 'r')
        luaunit.assertNotNil( f )
        f:close()
    end

    function TestLogger:tearDown()
        -- cleanup our log file after all tests
        os.remove(self.fname)
    end

Note

Errors generated during execution of setUp() or tearDown() functions are considered test failures.

Note

For compatibility with luaunit v2 and other lua unit-test frameworks, setUp() and tearDown() may also be named setup(), SetUp(), Setup(), teardown(), TearDown(), Teardown().

Using the command-line

You can control the LuaUnit execution from the command-line:

Output format

Choose the test output format with -o or --output. Available formats are:

  • text: the default output format
  • nil: no output at all
  • TAP: TAP format
  • junit: output junit xml

Example of non-verbose text format:

$ lua doc/test_something.lua
.......
Ran 7 tests in 0.002 seconds
OK

Example of TAP format:

$ lua doc/test_something.lua -o TAP
1..7
# Started on 03/10/15 16:50:09
# Starting class: TestAdd
ok     1        TestAdd.testAddError
ok     2        TestAdd.testAddPositive
ok     3        TestAdd.testAddZero
ok     4        TestAdd.testAdder
# Starting class: TestDiv
ok     5        TestDiv.testDivError
ok     6        TestDiv.testDivPositive
ok     7        TestDiv.testDivZero
# Ran 7 tests in 0.022 seconds, 7 successes, 0 failures

List of tests to run

You can list some test names on the command-line to run only those tests. The name must be the exact match of either the test table, the test function or the test table and the test method. The option may be repeated.

Example:

-- Run all TestAdd table tests and one test of TestDiv table.
$ lua doc/test_something.lua TestAdd TestDiv.testDivError -v
Started on 03/10/15 16:52:20
    TestAdd.testAddError ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAddPositive ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAddZero ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAdder ... Ok
    TestDiv.testDivError ... Ok
=========================================================
Ran 5 tests in 0.000 seconds
OK

Filtering tests

The most flexible approach for selecting tests to run is to use a pattern. With --pattern or -p, you can provide a lua pattern and only the tests that contain the pattern will actually be run.

Example:

-- Run all tests of zero testing and error testing
-- by using the magic character .
lua my_test_suite.lua -v -p Err.r -p Z.ro

For our test suite, it gives the following output:

Started on 03/10/15 16:48:29
    TestAdd.testAddError ... Ok
    TestAdd.testAddZero ... Ok
    TestDiv.testDivError ... Ok
    TestDiv.testDivZero ... Ok
=========================================================
Ran 4 tests in 0.010 seconds
OK (ignored=3)

The number of tests ignored by the selection is printed, along with the test result. The pattern can be any lua pattern. Be sure to exclude all magic characters with % (like -+?*) and protect your pattern from the shell interpretation by putting it in quotes.

Conclusion

You now know enough of LuaUnit to start writing your test suite. Check the reference documentation for a complete list of assertions, command-line options and specific behavior.

Reference documentation

Enabling global or module-level functions

Versions of LuaUnit before version 3.1 would export all assertions functions to the global namespace. A typical lua test file would look like this:

require('luaunit')

TestToto = {} --class

    function TestToto:test1_withFailure()
        local a = 1
        assertEquals( a , 1 )
        -- will fail
        assertEquals( a , 2 )
    end

[...]

However, this is an obsolete practice in Lua. It is now recommended to keep all functions inside the module. Starting from version 3.1 LuaUnit follows this practice and the code should be adapted to look like this:

-- the imported module must be stored
luaunit = require('luaunit')

TestToto = {} --class

    function TestToto:test1_withFailure()
        local a = 1
        luaunit.assertEquals( a , 1 )
        -- will fail
        luaunit.assertEquals( a , 2 )
    end

[...]

If you prefer the old way, LuaUnit can continue to export assertions functions if you set the following global variable prior to importing LuaUnit:

-- this works
EXPORT_ASSERT_TO_GLOBALS = true
require('luaunit')

TestToto = {} --class

    function TestToto:test1_withFailure()
        local a = 1
        assertEquals( a , 1 )
        -- will fail
        assertEquals( a , 2 )
    end

[...]

LuaUnit.run() function

Return value

Normally, you should run your test suite with the following line:

os.exit(luaunit.LuaUnit.run())

The run() function returns the number of failures of the test suite. This is good for an exit code, 0 meaning success.

Arguments

If no arguments are supplied, it parses the command-line arguments of the script and interpret them. If arguments are supplied to the function, they are parsed instead of the command-line. It uses the same syntax.

Example:

-- execute tests matching the 'withXY' pattern
os.exit(luaunit.LuaUnit.run('--pattern', 'withXY'))

Choice of tests

If test names were supplied, only those tests are executed. When test names are supplied, they don’t have to start with test, they are run anyway.

If no test names were supplied, a general test collection process starts under the following rules:

  • all variable starting with test or Test are scanned.

  • if the variable is a function it is collected for testing

  • if the variable is a table:

    • all keys starting with test or Test are collected (provided that they are functions)
    • keys with name setUp and tearDown are also collected

If one or more pattern were supplied, the test are then filtered according the pattern(s). Only the test that match the pattern(s) are actually executed.

setup and teardown

The function setUp() is executed before each test if it exists in the table. The function tearDown() is executed after every test if it exists in the table.

Note

tearDown() is always executed if it exists, even if there was a failure in the test or in the setUp() function. Failures in setUp() or tearDown() are considered as a general test failures.

LuaUnit.runSuite() function

If you want to keep the flexibility of the command-line parsing, but want to force some parameters, like the output format, you must use a slightly different syntax:

lu = luaunit.LuaUnit.new()
lu:setOutputType("tap")
os.exit( lu:runSuite() )

runSuite() behaves like run() except that it must be started with a LuaUnit instance as first argument, and it will use the LuaUnit instance settings.

Command-line options

Usage: lua <your_test_suite.lua> [options] [testname1 [testname2]

Test names

When no test names are supplied, all tests are collected.

The syntax for supplying test names can be either: name of the function, name of the table or name of the table + ‘.’ + name of the function. Only the supplied tests will be executed.

Selecting output format

Choose the output format with the syntax -o FORMAT or --output FORMAT.

Formats available:

  • text: the default output format of LuaUnit
  • nil: no output at all
  • tap: output compatible with the Test Anything Protocol
  • junit: output compatible with the JUnit xml format (used by many CI platforms)

Warning

In the JUnit format, a destination filename must be supplied with --name or -n

Destination filename

When using the JUnit format, the test suites writes an XML file with the test results. The file name is mandatory and must be supplied with: --name FILENAME or -n FILENAME

Selecting tests with patterns

You select a subset of tests by specifying one or more filter patterns, with -p PATTERN or --pattern PATTERN.

The pattern is looked for on the full test name TestTable.testMethod . Only the tests that actually match the pattern are selected. When specifying more than one pattern, they are tried one by one until the name matches (OR combination).

Make sure you esape magic chars like +?-* with % .

Stopping on first error or failure

If –failure or -f is passed as an option, LuaUnit will stop on the first failure or error and display the test results.

If –error or -e is passed as an option, LuaUnit will stop on the first error (but continue on failures).

Other Options:

  • -h, --help: display the command-line help.
  • --version: display the version information
  • -v, --verbose: Increase the output verbosity. The exact effect depends on the output format. May be specified multiple times.
  • -q, --quiet: Set verbosity to minimum. The exact effect depends on the output format.

Assertions functions

You will now find the list of all assertion functions. For all functions, When an assertion fails, the failure message tries to be as informative as possible, by displaying the expectation and value that caused the failure.

Note

see More on table printing and Comparing tables with keys of type table for more dealing with recursive tables and tables containing keys of type table.

Equality assertions

All equality assertions functions take two arguments, in the order actual value then expected value. Some people are more familiar with the order expected value then actual value. It is possible to configure LuaUnit to use the opposite order for all equality assertions, by setting up a module variable:

luaunit.ORDER_ACTUAL_EXPECTED=false

The order only matters for the message that is displayed in case of failures. It does not influence the test itself.

assertEquals(actual, expected)

Alias: assert_equals()

Assert that two values are equal.

For tables, the comparison is a deep comparison :

  • number of elements must be the same
  • tables must contain the same keys
  • each key must contain the same values. The values are also compared recursively with deep comparison.

LuaUnit provides other table-related assertions, see Table assertions

assertNotEquals(actual, expected)

Alias: assert_not_equals()

Assert that two values are different. The assertion fails if the two values are identical.

It also uses table deep comparison.

assertAlmostEquals(actual, expected, margin)

Alias: assert_almost_equals()

Assert that two floating point numbers are almost equal.

When comparing floating point numbers, strict equality does not work. Computer arithmetic is so that an operation that mathematically yields 1.00000000 might yield 0.999999999999 in lua . That’s why you need an almost equals comparison, where you specify the error margin.

assertNotAlmostEquals(actual, expected, margin)

Alias: assert_not_almost_equals()

Assert that two floating point numbers are not almost equal.

Value assertions

assertTrue(value)

Alias: assert_true()

Assert that a given value compares to true. Lua coercion rules are applied so that values like 0, "", 1.17 all compare to true.

assertFalse(value)

Alias: assert_false()

Assert that a given value compares to false. Lua coercion rules are applied so that only nil and false all compare to false.

assertNil(value)

Aliases: assert_nil(), assertIsNil(), assert_is_nil()

Assert that a given value is nil .

assertNotNil(value)

Aliases: assert_not_nil(), assertNotIsNil(), assert_not_is_nil()

Assert that a given value is not nil . Lua coercion rules are applied so that values like 0, "", false all validate the assertion.

assertIs(actual, expected)

Alias: assert_is()

Assert that two variables are identical. For string, numbers, boolean and for nil, this gives the same result as assertEquals() . For the other types, identity means that the two variables refer to the same object.

Example :

s1='toto'
s2='to'..'to'
t1={1,2}
t2={1,2}

luaunit.assertIs(s1,s1) -- ok
luaunit.assertIs(s1,s2) -- ok
luaunit.assertIs(t1,t1) -- ok
luaunit.assertIs(t1,t2) -- fail
assertNotIs(actual, expected)

Alias: assert_not_is()

Assert that two variables are not identical, in the sense that they do not refer to the same value. See assertIs() for more details.

String assertions

Assertions related to string and patterns.

assertStrContains(str, sub[, useRe])

Alias: assert_str_contains()

Assert that a string contains the given substring or pattern.

By default, substring is searched in the string. If useRe is provided and is true, sub is treated as a pattern which is searched inside the string str .

assertStrIContains(str, sub)

Alias: assert_str_icontains()

Assert that a string contains the given substring, irrespective of the case.

Not that unlike assertStrcontains(), you can not search for a pattern.

assertNotStrContains(str, sub, useRe)

Alias: assert_not_str_contains()

Assert that a string does not contain a given substring or pattern.

By default, substring is searched in the string. If useRe is provided and is true, sub is treated as a pattern which is searched inside the string str .

assertNotStrIContains(str, sub)

Alias: assert_not_str_icontains()

Assert that a string does not contain the given substring, irrespective of the case.

Not that unlike assertNotStrcontains(), you can not search for a pattern.

assertStrMatches(str, pattern[, start[, final]])

Alias: assert_str_matches()

Assert that a string matches the full pattern pattern.

If start and final are not provided or are nil, the pattern must match the full string, from start to end. The functions allows to specify the expected start and end position of the pattern in the string.

Error assertions

Error related assertions, to verify error generation and error messages.

assertError(func, ...)

Alias: assert_error()

Assert that calling functions func with the arguments yields an error. If the function does not yield an error, the assertion fails.

Note that the error message itself is not checked, which means that this function does not distinguish between the legitimate error that you expect and another error that might be triggered by mistake.

The next functions provide a better approach to error testing, by checking explicitly the error message content.

Note

When testing LuaUnit, switching from assertError() to assertErrorMsgEquals() revealed quite a few bugs!

assertErrorMsgEquals(expectedMsg, func, ...)

Alias: assert_error_msg_equals()

Assert that calling function func will generate exactly the given error message. If the function does not yield an error, or if the error message is not identical, the assertion fails.

Be careful when using this function that error messages usually contain the file name and line number information of where the error was generated. This is usually inconvenient. To ignore the filename and line number information, you can either use a pattern with assertErrorMsgMatches() or simply check for the message containt with assertErrorMsgContains() .

assertErrorMsgContains(partialMsg, func, ...)

Alias: assert_error_msg_contains()

Assert that calling function func will generate an error message containing partialMsg . If the function does not yield an error, or if the expected message is not contained in the error message, the assertion fails.

assertErrorMsgMatches(expectedPattern, func, ...)

Alias: assert_error_msg_matches()

Assert that calling function func will generate an error message matching expectedPattern . If the function does not yield an error, or if the error message does not match the provided patternm the assertion fails.

Note that matching is done from the start to the end of the error message. Be sure to escape magic all magic characters with % (like -+.?*) .

Type assertions

The following functions all perform type checking on their argument. If the received value is not of the right type, the failure message will contain the expected type, the received type and the received value to help you identify better the problem.
assertIsNumber(value)

Aliases: assertNumber(), assert_is_number(), assert_number()

Assert that the argument is a number (integer or float)

assertIsString(value)

Aliases: assertString(), assert_is_string(), assert_string()

Assert that the argument is a string.

assertIsTable(value)

Aliases: assertTable(), assert_is_table(), assert_table()

Assert that the argument is a table.

assertIsBoolean(value)

Aliases: assertBoolean(), assert_is_boolean(), assert_boolean()

Assert that the argument is a boolean.

assertIsNil(value)

Aliases: assertNil(), assert_is_nil(), assert_nil()

Assert that the argument is a nil.

assertIsFunction(value)

Aliases: assertFunction(), assert_is_function(), assert_function()

Assert that the argument is a function.

assertIsUserdata(value)

Aliases: assertUserdata(), assert_is_userdata(), assert_userdata()

Assert that the argument is a userdata.

assertIsCoroutine(value)

Aliases: assertCoroutine(), assert_is_coroutine(), assert_coroutine(), assertIsThread(), assertThread(), assert_is_thread(), assert_thread()

Assert that the argument is a coroutine (an object with type thread ).

Table assertions

assertItemsEquals(actual, expected)

Alias: assert_items_equals()

Assert that two tables contain the same items, irrespective of their keys.

This function is practical for example if you want to compare two lists but where items are not in the same order:

luaunit.assertItemsEquals( {1,2,3}, {3,2,1} ) -- assertion succeeds
The comparison is not recursive on the items: if any of the items are tables, they are compared using table equality (like as in assertEquals() ), where the key matters.
luaunit.assertItemsEquals( {1,{2,3},4}, {4,{3,2,},1} ) -- assertion fails because {2,3} ~= {3,2}

More on table printing

When asserting tables equality, by default, the table content is printed in case of failures. LuaUnit tries to print tables in a readable format. It is possible to always display the table id along with the content, by setting a module parameter PRINT_TABLE_REF_IN_ERROR_MSG . This helps identifying tables:

local lu = require('luaunit')

local t1 = {1,2,3}
-- normally, t1 is dispalyed as: "{1,2,3}"

-- if setting this:
lu.PRINT_TABLE_REF_IN_ERROR_MSG = true

-- display of table t1 becomes: "<table: 0x29ab56> {1,2,3}"

Note

table loops

When displaying table content, it is possible to encounter loops, if for example two table references eachother. In such cases, LuaUnit display the full table content once, along with the table id, and displays only the table id for the looping reference.

Example: displaying a table with reference loop

local t1 = {}
local t2 = {}
t1.t2 = t2
t1.a = {1,2,3}
t2.t1 = t1

-- when displaying table t1:
--   table t1 inside t2 is only displayed by its id because t1 is already being displayed
--   table t2 is displayed along with its id because it is part of a loop.
-- t1: "<table: 0x29ab56> { a={1,2,3}, t2=<table: 0x27ab23> {t1=<table: 0x29ab56>} }"

Comparing tables with keys of type table

This is a very uncommon scenario but there are a few programs out there which use tables as keys for other tables. LuaUnit has been adjusted to deal intelligently with this scenario.

A small code block is worth a thousand pictures :

local lu = require('luaunit')

-- let's define two tables
t1 = { 1, 2 }
t2 = { 1, 2 }
lu.assertEquals( t1, t2 ) -- succeeds

-- let's define three tables, with the two above tables as keys
t3 = { t1='a' }
t4 = { t2='a' }
t5 = { t2='a' }

There are two ways to treat comparison of tables t3 and t4:

Method 1: table keys are compared by content

  • t3 contain one key: t1
  • t4 contain one key: t2, which has exactly the same content as t1
  • the two keys compare equally with assertEquals, so assertEquals( t3, t4 ) succeeds

Method 2: table keys are compared by reference

  • t3 contain one key: t1
  • t4 contain one key: t2, which is not the same table as t1, its reference is different
  • the two keys are different because t1 is a different object than t2 so assertEquals( t3, t4 ) fails

Whether method 1 or method 2 is more appropriate is up for debate.

LuaUnit has been adjusted to support both scenarios, with the config variable: TABLE_EQUALS_KEYBYCONTENT

  • TABLE_EQUALS_KEYBYCONTENT = true (default): method 1 - table keys compared by content
  • TABLE_EQUALS_KEYBYCONTENT = false: method 2 - table keys compared by reference

In any case, assertEquals( t4, t5 ) always succeeds.

To adjust the config, change it into the luaunit table before running any tests:

local lu = require('luaunit')

-- define all your tests
-- ...

lu.TABLE_EQUALS_KEYBYCONTENT = false
-- run your tests:
os.exit( lu.LuaUnit.run() )

Developing LuaUnit

Development ecosystem

LuaUnit is developed on Github.

Bugs or feature requests should be reported using GitHub issues.

Usage and development may be discussed on LuaUnit mailing-list . If you are using LuaUnit for your project, please drop us an note.

It is released under the BSD license.

This documentation is available at Read-the-docs.

Contributing

You may contribute to LuaUnit by reporting bugs, fixing reported bugs or developing new features.

Some issues on github are marked with label enhancement. Feel free to pick up such tasks and implement them.

Changes should be proposed as Pull Requests on github.

Unit-tests

All proposed changes should pass all unit-tests and if needed, add more unit-tests to cover the bug or the new functionality. Usage is pretty simple:

$ lua run_unit_tests.lua
................................................................................
...............................
Ran 111 tests in 0.120 seconds
OK

Functional tests

Functional tests also exist to validate LuaUnit. Their management is slightly more complicated.

The main goal of functional tests is to validate that LuaUnit output has not been altered. Since LuaUnit supports some standard compliant output (TAP, junitxml), this is very important (and it has been broken in the past)

Functional tests perform the following actions:

  • Run the 2 suites: example_with_luaunit.lua, test_with_err_fail_pass.lua (with various options to have successe, failure and/or errors)

  • Run every suite with all output format, all verbosity

  • Validate the XML output with jenkins/hudson and junit schema

  • Compare the results with the previous output ( archived in test/ref ), with some tricks to make the comparison possible :

    • adjustment of the file separator to use the same output on Windows and Unix
    • date and test duration is zeroed so that it does not impact the comparison
    • adjust the stack trace format which has changed between Lua 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3

  • Run some legacy suites or tricky output to manage and verify output: test_with_xml.lua, , compat_luaunit_v2x.lua, legacy_example_with_luaunit.lua

For functional tests to run, diff must be available on the command line. xmllint is needed to perform the xml validation but this step is skipped if xmllint can not be found.

When functional tests work well, it looks like this:

$ lua run_functional_tests.lua
...............
Ran 15 tests in 9.676 seconds
OK

When functional test fail, a diff of the comparison between the reference output and the current output is displayed (it can be quite long). The list of faulty files is summed-up at the end.

Modifying reference files for functional tests

The script run_functional_tests.lua supports a –update option, with an optional argument.

  • –update without argument overwrites all reference output with the current output. Use only if you know what you are doing, this is usually a very bad idea!

  • The following argument overwrite a specific subset of reference files, select the one that fits your change:

    • TestXml: XML output of test_with_xml
    • ExampleXml: XML output of example_with_luaunit
    • ExampleTap: TAP output of example_with_luaunit
    • ExampleText: text output of example_with_luaunit
    • ExampleNil: nil output of example_with_luaunit
    • ErrFailPassText: text output of test_with_err_fail_pass
    • ErrFailPassTap: TAP output of test_with_err_fail_pass
    • ErrFailPassXml: XML output of test_with_err_fail_pass
    • StopOnError: errFailPassTextStopOnError-1.txt, -2.txt, -3.txt, -4.txt

For example to record a change in the test_with_err_fail_pass output

$ lua run_functional_tests.lua --update ErrFailPassXml ErrFailPassTap ErrFailPassText

>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlDefault.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlDefault-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlDefault-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlQuiet.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlQuiet-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlQuiet-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlVerbose.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlVerbose-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassXmlVerbose-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapDefault.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapDefault-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapDefault-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapQuiet.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapQuiet-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapQuiet-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapVerbose.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapVerbose-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTapVerbose-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextDefault.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextDefault-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextDefault-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextQuiet.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextQuiet-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextQuiet-failures.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextVerbose.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextVerbose-success.txt
>>>>>>> Generating test/ref/errFailPassTextVerbose-failures.txt
$

You can then commit the new files into git.

Note

how to commit updated reference outputs

When committing those changes into git, please use if possible an intelligent git committing tool to commit only the interesting changes. With SourceTree for example, in case of XML changes, I can select only the lines relevant to the change and avoid committing all the updates to test duration and test datestamp.

Typical failures for functional tests

Functional tests may start failing when:

  1. Increasing LuaUnit version
  2. Improving or breaking LuaUnit output

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