NetBSD-5.0.2/dist/atf/doc/atf-formats.5
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.Dd November 4, 2007
.Dt ATF-FORMATS 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm atf-formats
.Nd machine-parseable data formats used by ATF
.Sh DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the multiple data formats used in ATF.
These formats affect configuration files, control files and any data that
is externalized or internalized by the tools.
.Pp
Data files are always organized as follows:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
Header1: Value1 \\
... | head
HeaderN: ValueN /
mandatory blank line
Free-form text contents \\
... | body
... /
.Ed
.Pp
A file must always contain a
.Sq Content-Type
header and must always separate that header from the body with a blank
line, even if the body is empty.
.Pp
The
.Sq Content-Type
is always of the form:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
Content-Type: application/X-atf-<subtype>; version="<version>"
.Ed
.Pp
where
.Sq subtype
indicates the specific file format and
.Sq version
its format version.
This header must be the first one of the file.
.Pp
The main purpose of the
.Sq Content-Type
header, aside from determining the format used in the file, is to allow
future changes to a given format.
Whenever an incompatible change is made, the version is bumped by one.
By keeping the header in the first line, future versions may even remove
the need for such a header -- e.g. if some format was replaced by XML
files, which have their own mandatory header.
.Pp
The rest of this document details the different format types.
.Ss Format: application/X-atf-atffile, version: 1
Atffiles are logically divided into three sections:
.Bl -bullet
.It
Test programs: the list of test programs that define the test suite
described by the Atffile.
.It
Meta-data properties: these define some constant values applicable to
all the test programs defined in the file.
In some sense they define the properties that describe the test suite.
.It
Configuration variables: defaults for configuration variables that
can be overridden through configuration files or the command line.
.El
.Pp
The grammar for Atffiles is the following:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
DATA ::= ( ( CONF | PROP | TP )? COMMENT? NEWLINE )* EOF
CONF ::= 'conf:' WORD EQUAL STRING
PROP ::= 'prop:' WORD EQUAL STRING
TP ::= TPFILE | TPGLOB
TPFILE ::= 'tp: ' STRING
TPGLOB ::= 'tp-glob: ' STRING
STRING ::= WORD | '"' WORD* '"'
.Ed
.Pp
The meaning of the constructions above is:
.Bl -tag -width TPGLOBXX
.It CONF
Definition of a configuration variable.
.It PROP
Definition of a meta-data property.
.It TPFILE
Addition of a test program into the test suite.
The string is taken literally as the program's name, and this program
must exist.
.It TPGLOB
Addition of multiple test programs into the test suite.
The string is taken as a glob pattern, which may have or not have any
matches in the current directory.
.El
.Pp
An example:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
prop: test-suite = utilities
conf: unprivileged-user = nobody
tp: t_cp
tp: t_mv
tp: t_df
tp-glob: t_dir_*
.Ed
.Ss Format: application/X-atf-config, version: 1
Configuration files are very simple: they only contain a list of variable
name/variable value pairs.
Their grammar is:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
DATA ::= ( VAR? COMMENT? NEWLINE )* EOF
VAR ::= WORD EQUAL STRING
COMMENT ::= HASH WORD*
STRING ::= WORD | '"' WORD* '"'
.Ed
.Pp
An example:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# This is the system-wide configuration file for ATF.
# The above and this line are comments placed on their own line.
var1 = this is a variable value
var2 = this is another one # Optional comment at the end.
.Ed
.Ss Format: application/X-atf-tcs, version: 1
The
.Sq application/X-atf-tcs
format is used to describe the results of a collection of test cases;
in other words, it represents
.Em the output of a test program .
Unfortunately, it is not easy to control, from inside a test program, what
it prints to both its standard output and standard error streams.
This is specially the case of test programs written in the POSIX shell
language, because they are constantly executing external tools that may
print unexpected messages at all times.
Due to this, ATF imposes no restrictions on what a test program can send to
these two channels; in fact, they are encouraged to print as much useful
information as possible to aid in the debugging of test failures.
.Pp
Because we have no control over the two standard streams, the
.Sq application/X-atf-tcs
format describes the structure of a third stream, known as the
.Em results output ,
that test programs must generate.
(Note that test programs send, by default, the results output to the
standard output; use their
.Fl r
flag to change this whenever you need to parse the data.)
This stream is decoupled from the other two and has the following grammar:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
DATA ::= TCS-COUNT TC-STANZA* EOF
TCS-COUNT ::= 'tcs-count' COLON POSITIVE-NUMBER NEWLINE
TC-STANZA ::= TC-START TC-END
TC-START ::= 'tc-start' COLON STRING NEWLINE
TC-END ::= 'tc-end' COLON STRING COMMA TCR NEWLINE
TCR ::= 'passed' | ('failed' | 'skipped') COMMA STRING
.Ed
.Pp
The meaning of the constructions above is:
.Bl -tag -width TCSXCOUNTXX
.It TCS-COUNT
Indicates the number of test cases that will be executed.
There will be this exact amount of
.Sq TC-STANZA
constructions following it.
.It TC-START
Indicates the beginning of a test case.
This is accompanied by the test case's name.
.It TC-END
Indicates the completion of a test case.
This is accompanied by the test case's name, its result and the reason
associated with this result (if applicable).
.El
.Pp
There are multiple reasons behind this design:
.Bl -bullet
.It
The reader of this format must be able to show real-time progress to the
user as the test cases are processed.
Therefore, the
.Sq TC-START
construction tells the reader
.Em when
a test case has started to process data.
.It
The reader of this format has to be able to provide useful statistics to
the user without having to wait for the end of the file.
Hence, the existence of the
.Sq TCS-COUNT
construction located at the beginning of the file.
.It
Text-based tools have to be able to easily look for the results of a given
test case.
This is why the
.Sq TC-END
construction duplicate the test case name already provided in
.Sq TC-START .
.El
.Pp
An example:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
tcs-count: 2
tc-start: add
tc-end: add, passed
tc-start: subtract
tc-end: subtract, failed, Calculated an unexpected value
.Ed
.Pp
Going back to the standard output and standard error streams, the reader
has to be able to match the messages in those two streams to the test cases
they belong to.
To do this, these two streams must print a magic string that separates the
output of test cases from each other, which is enough to synchronize their
contents with the results output.
This string is
.Sq __atf_tc_separator__
and it must printed on a line of its own.
The last test case should not be followed by this line because the end of
file marker takes its role.
.Ss Format: application/X-atf-tps, version: 2
The
.Sq application/X-atf-tps
format multiplexes the standard output, standard error and results output
streams from multiple test programs into a single data file.
This format is used by
.Xr atf-run 1
to report the execution of several test programs and is later parsed by
.Xr atf-report 1
to inform the user of this process.
It has the following grammar:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
DATA ::= INFO* TPS-COUNT TP-STANZA* INFO* EOF
INFO ::= 'info' COLON STRING COMMA STRING NEWLINE
TPS-COUNT ::= 'tps-count' COLON POSITIVE-NUMBER NEWLINE
TP-STANZA ::= TP-START TC-STANZA* TC-END
TP-START ::= 'tp-start' COLON STRING COMMA POSITIVE-NUMBER NEWLINE
TP-END ::= 'tc-end' COLON STRING (COMMA STRING)?
TC-STANZA ::= TC-START (TC-SO | TC-SE)* TC-END
TC-START ::= 'tc-start' COLON STRING NEWLINE
TC-SO ::= 'tc-so' COLON STRING NEWLINE
TC-SE ::= 'tc-se' COLON STRING NEWLINE
TC-END ::= 'tc-end' COLON STRING COMMA TCR NEWLINE
TCR ::= 'passed' | ('failed' | 'skipped') COMMA STRING
.Ed
.Pp
The meaning of the constructions above is:
.Bl -tag -width TPSXCOUNTXX
.It TPS-COUNT
Indicates the number of test programs that will be executed.
There will be this exact amount of
.Sq TP-STANZA
constructions following it.
.It TP-START
Indicates the beginning of a test program.
This includes the program's name and the amount of test cases that
will follow.
.It TP-END
Indicates the completion of a test program.
This is followed by the program's name and, if the program ended
prematurely, an error message indicating the reason of its failure.
A successful execution of a test program (regardless of the status of its
test cases) must not be accompanied by any reason.
.It TC-START
Indicates the beginning of a test case.
This is accompanied by the test case's name.
.It TC-SO
Contains a text line sent to the standard output stream during the
execution of the test case.
Leading and trailing space is preserved.
.It TC-SE
Contains a text line sent to the standard error stream during the
execution of the test case.
Leading and trailing space is preserved.
.It TC-END
Indicates the completion of a test case.
This is accompanied by the test case's name, its result and the reason
associated with this result (if applicable).
.El
.Pp
An example:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
tps-count: 2
tp-start: calculator, 2
tc-start: add
tc-end: add, passed
tc-start: subtract
tc-so: 3-2 expected to return 1 but got 0
tc-end: subtract, failed, Calculated an unexpected value
tp-end: calculator
tp-start: files, 1
tc-start: copy
tc-se: could not find the cp(1) utility
tc-end: copy, skipped
tp-end: files
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr atf 7