On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 02:12:46PM +0100, Robin Houston wrote: > Michael Schwern wrote: > > Ah HA! I've been wondering why nobody ever thinks to write a simple > > ok() function for their tests! perlhack has bad testing advice. > The "simple ok() function" may make test scripts easier to write, > but it makes them a *lot* more difficult to use. > > One compromise would be to use a test-generating script, which allows > the tests to be structured simply and _generates_ the actual test > code. One could then grep the generated test script to locate the > failing code. Another would be to make a small ok function from something that can be cut&pasted into any of the core perl tests (ie stuff before lib/) Something that will issue a comment using caller() to find the line number of the failing test, and let the user pass in names for the tests. Alternatively an ok() function and encouraging a style of ok ($schwern->DonateBucksToYAS(500)) or print "# Schwern still has the money - there are " . $core->countUntestedModules() . " untested modules in the core\n"; to print a name and diagnostic data for the failing test should also make tracing test problems easier. (I agree with Robin - try tracking bugs in op/pack.t) Nicholas Clark