Shell test frameworks

This is a list of test frameworks and related tools in pure shell.

Sort order is random.

Last commits for the frameworks are noted by 2017-04-03.

Roundup

Last commit: Jan 27, 2015

Features:

• test autorunner
• test case fails and aborts on first non-zero exit code
• setup/teardown
• skipping tests

Test cases:

• coded in spearate functions with naming like it_.*() (RSpec-like)
• are searched in files passed as commandline parameters or in a current file with special shebang

Output: custom human-readable format.

Installer: configure-make-based installer provided.

Codebase consists of a single file.

BATS

Last commit: Feb 19, 2016

Features:

• test autorunner
• test case fails and aborts on first non-zero exit code
• setup/teardown
• helper functions to ease doing several asserts per test case
• no tests skipping (probably can be done by modifying function names)

Test cases:

• coded in spearate functions with naming like @test ".*"()
• are searched in files passed as commandline parameters or in a current file with special shebang

Output: TAP format.

Installer: install.sh provided to do installation Codebase consists of several files

Sharness

Last commit: Sep 9, 2016

• assertions are eval-ed

Shpec

Last commit: Apr 2, 2017

Features:

• test autorunner (RSpec-like): accepts parameter with tests
• describe/it blocks
• various assert functions
• custom matchers supported
• assertions are eval-ed
• stubbing commands
• failing assertion continues evaluation
• no setup/teardown functions
• color output

Test cases:

• run in the same process

Outuput: RSpec-like format.

Installer: installation not needed but can be done via install.sh or a makefile

Codebase is very small and clear although looks not to be very portable.

Shunit

Last commit: 2 Nov 2008

Shunit2

Last commit: Mar 16, 2017

Features:

• test autorunner
• various assertXXX functions
• failing assertion produces message but does not abort test case
• setup/teardown
• failing/skipping tests

Test cases:

• coded in spearate functions with naming like test.*()
• are searched in currently loaded plain shell script

Wide range of shells and OSes is supported.

This can also be obtained by apt-get install shunit2 in Ubuntu or searched for various forks/clones on github.

Output: custom human-readable format. Codebase consists of a single file.

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See also shflags and log4sh of the same author which are commandline param processing library and logging library respectively.

kal-shlib-shunit

Last commit: Apr 30, 2012

(3 commits in total for the whole lifetime)

shell-unittest of ALTLinux's libshell

Last commit: 18 Nov 2016

Test autorunner searches for test cases in a file pointed to by specific function invocation.

Has very poor documentation. A part of libshell and not usable without the rest of the library.

Features:

• test autorunner
• various assertXXX functions
• setup/teardown

Test cases:

• coded in spearate functions with special comment placed after function name: # UnitTest
• are searched by a special function invocation from a separate file

Output: custom human-readable format. Codebase for the whole library consists of several files.

Installer: make-based installer provided.

tapper-autoreport

Last commit: 22 Sep 2014

Not an actually testing framework but a library to easily produce output from your script in TAP format.

It seems to carry much legacy stuff in it and I could not actually run it (although I didn't try very hard with it).

Output: TAP format.

testlib.sh

Last commit: 13 Feb 2013

ts

Last commit: Jun 1, 2016

wvtest

Last commit: Jun 9, 2015

Not an actually testing framework but a library to easily produce output in custom test-result format.