QLT is for testing systems. It consists of a number of test files and support files.
A test file starts off with a header form that specifies its prerequisites. It looks like this:
'(:requires ("foo" "bar"))
The :requires value is a list of system names to load (via ASDF)
before attempting to load the rest of the file.
The remainder of the file has forms to run, as though with the load function.
If any of the forms in the test file signals an error, the test is considered failed and evaluation stops.
When loading the file, the *package* is set to the qlt-user
package, which uses only the cl package and nothing else.
The value of *default-pathname-defaults* is the directory in which
the test file is found. Non-code files related to the test file can be
referenced with relative pathnames.
The variable qlt-user:*scratch-directory* is bound to a pathname to
which the script can write files, if necessary for testing. All files
in the scratch directory are deleted after the test completes
successfully.
FASLs for supporting libraries are always compiled fresh each time the test file is loaded.
Test files should go in the tests/ subdirectory of this repo. Multiple related tests, or tests that require non-code support files, should go in a subdirectory.
These tests are currently run from the Quicklisp dist construction system. The goal is to reduce the number of runtime errors in released Quicklisp dists.
To run an individual test, use the run-test.sh script, like so:
./run-test.sh tests/vecto.lisp
The build and load log will be written to standard output.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email zach@quicklisp.org or open a github issue.