[TIP] Functional Test Runner for Command Line Tools?

[holger krekel]

Hi Noah, 

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 16:15 +1200, Noah Gift wrote:
> In looking at http://pycheesecake.org/wiki/PythonTestingToolsTaxonomy
> I don't see something that automates writing functional tests for
> command line tools.  Hopefully, I am wrong, but I am looking for
> something that will fully exercise a command line tool easily.  How is
> everyone else testing their command line tools?

I am doing that a lot with py.test to test itself. 
Here is the current pattern for its acceptance tests - 
i.e. tests that relate to how the user sees things. 

    http://bitbucket.org/hpk42/py-trunk/src/tip/py/test/testing/acceptance_test.py

the test runner cares for passing in a "testdir" object
which provides helper methods for creating files, running
commands.  Currently that "testdir" is a bit py.test specific 
but i am happy to factor out commonly useful methods 
and advertise/document things a bit if you push me 
a bit by filing a ticket on the brand-new issue tracker
on bitbucket i want to play with :) 

cheers,
holger

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