git @ Cat's Eye Technologies Falderal / f607ad5
Update spec to describe freestyle blocks (could use more work.) Chris Pressey 8 years ago
1 changed file(s) with 75 addition(s) and 32 deletion(s). Raw diff Collapse all Expand all
1616 Overview
1717 --------
1818
19 A Falderal Literate Test Suite is a text file where some of the lines
19 A Falderal Literate Test Suite is a plain text file where some of the lines
2020 have special meaning to the Falderal Literate Test Format. Certain
21 groupings of the lines defined by this format are intended to denote tests.
22
23 A tool which claims to understand this format may choose to extract these
24 tests, run them, and report which and how many of those tests passed or
25 failed. That would be a typical application for this format. However, it is
26 not required to do this with the tests; it may, for example, reformat the
21 groupings of the lines defined by this format are intended to denote tests,
22 while others denote pragmas which specify how those tests should be run.
23 Outside of these groupings, lines have no meaning to the Falderal Literate
24 Test Format other than that they are presumed to be mainly descriptive text.
25
26 The plain text file may also be formatted in some other format, such as
27 Markdown, although this is not required.
28
29 A tool which claims to understand the Falderal Literate Test Format may
30 choose to extract the tests from such a document, run them, and report which
31 and how many of them passed or failed. That would be a typical application
32 for this format. However, no tool is strictly required to do this with the
33 tests found in a document; a tool may, for example, simply reformat the
2734 tests to produce an output file in a different format.
2835
2936 In the syntax templates below, words in `/slashes/` indicate a variable
3239 Syntax
3340 ------
3441
35 Lines which have special meaning to the Falderal Literate Test Format
36 always begin with an indent of four (4) spaces from the leftmost column
37 followed immediately by a series of distinguished characters, called an
38 _introducer_. The introducers which have meaning to the Falderal Literate
39 Test Format are as follows:
40
41 * `->` (hyphen, greater-than sign): pragma
42 * `| ` (vertical bar, space): test body text
43 * `+ ` (plus sign, space): test input text
44 * `= ` (equals sign, space): expected output text
45 * `? ` (question mark, space): expected error text
46 * `> ` (greater-than sign, space): Bird-style embedded code
42 Each grouping of lines which has special meaning to the Falderal Literate
43 Test Format always begins with an indent of four (4) spaces from the
44 leftmost column, preceded by non-indented text, and followed by either
45 non-indented text or the end of the file. Such a grouping of lines is
46 called a _block_.
47
48 There are two general formats to any block. In the first, "verbose" format,
49 each indent of 4 spaces is followed immediately on that line by distinguished
50 sequence of characters, called an _introducer_. The introducers which have
51 meaning to the Falderal Literate Test Format are as follows:
52
53 * `->` (hyphen, greater-than sign): pragma
54 * `| ` (vertical bar, space): test body text
55 * `+ ` (plus sign, space): test input text
56 * `= ` (equals sign, space): expected output text
57 * `? ` (question mark, space): expected error text
4758
4859 If the same introducer occurs on multiple adjacent lines, the text after
4960 each introducer is concatenated to form one chunk of relevant text. This
5061 allows, for example, multi-line text to be given as the body, the input,
51 or the expected output of a test. Lines without introducers are called
52 _intervening text_.
62 or the expected output of a test.
5363
5464 There are some restrictions on the order in which introducers can sensibly
55 occur:
56
57 * Test body text should occur after intervening text.
65 occur in a block:
66
67 * Test body text should occur at the start of a block.
5868 * Test body test may be optionally followed by test input text.
59 * The first test input text must be immediately preceded by test body text,
60 with no intervening text.
69 * The first test input text must be immediately preceded by test body text.
6170 * Subsequent test input texts need not be preceded by a test body text;
62 in this case, the previously-defined test body text will be used again.
71 in this case, the previously-appearing test body text will be used again.
6372 * Test body text must be followed by either test input text, expected
6473 output text, or expected error text, with no intervening text.
6574 * Either expected output or error text must follow either test body
6776
6877 See the sections for these introducers, below, for more details.
6978
70 Bird-style embedded code is not considered part of a test by the Falderal
71 Literate Test Format, but may be recognized as such by a formatting tool,
72 for purposes of formatting.
73
79 In the other, "freestyle" format, not all lines in a block require
80 introducers. A freestyle format block is indentified as such if one or
81 more of the final lines of the block begin with any of the following
82 introducers:
83
84 * `=> `: expected output text
85 * `==> `: expected output text
86 * `===> `: expected output text
87 * `?> `: expected error text
88 * `??> `: expected error text
89 * `???> `: expected error text
90
91 If a block is identified as a freestyle block, all lines preceding the
92 final lines with one of these introducers, are interpreted as having
93 no introducer at all (even if they begin with `| ` or some other sequence
94 already mentioned) and are used as the test body block.
95
96 Lines without introducers are called _intervening text_.
7497 Lines of intervening text are classified as either blank or non-blank. A
7598 line is blank if it contains no characters, or if it contains only whitespace.
7699 A group of non-blank lines is referred to as a _paragraph_.
216239 test input text; either way it must then be followed immediately by either
217240 and expected output section or expected error section.
218241
219 Valid examples:
242 Valid examples in the "verbose" format:
220243
221244 | thing to test
222245 = output to expect
234257
235258 + different input to give the immediately previously defined test body
236259 ? different error to expect
260
261 Valid examples in the "freestyle" format:
262
263 thing to test
264 => output to expect
265
266 thing to test
267 ==> output to expect
268
269 thing to test
270 ===> output to expect
271
272 thing to test
273 ?> error to expect
274
275 thing to test
276 ??> error to expect
277
278 thing to test
279 ???> error to expect
237280
238281 Invalid examples:
239282