_______      _______
 ___  /___________ /__
  _  __/ __ \  __/ /_/
  / /_/ /_/ / / / ,\
  \__/\____/_/ /_/|_\
             >>>------>

Test with fork

Tork runs your tests as they change, in parallel:

1. Absorbs test execution overhead into a master process.

2. Forks to inherit overhead and run test files in parallel.

3. Avoids running unchanged tests inside changed test files.

Features

• No configuration necessary: simply run tork to start testing now!

• Runs test files in parallel using fork for multi-core/CPU utilization.

• Tests changes your Ruby application for rapid TDD: avoids running (1) unchanged test files and (2) unchanged tests inside changed test files.

• Supports MiniTest, Test::Unit, RSpec, and any testing framework that (1) exits with a nonzero status to indicate test failures and (2) is loaded by your application's test/test_helper.rb or spec/spec_helper.rb file.

• Logs the output from your tests into separate files: one log per test.

• Configurable through Ruby scripts in your current working directory.

• You can override the modular tork* programs with your own in $PATH.

• You can remotely control other tork* programs using tork-remote(1).

Architecture

Following UNIX philosophy, Tork is composed of simple text-based programs that do one thing well. As a result, you can even create your own user interface for Tork by wrapping the tork-driver(1) program appropriately!

• tork(1) is an interactive command-line user interface for tork-driver(1)
• tork-herald(1) monitors current directory tree and reports changed files
• tork-driver(1) drives the engine according to the herald's observations
• tork-engine(1) tells master to run tests and keeps track of test results
• tork-master(1) absorbs test execution overhead and forks to run your tests
• tork-remote(1) remotely controls any Tork program running in the same pwd
• tork-notify(1) shows how to receive and process messages from Tork programs

When the herald observes that files in or beneath the current directory have been written to, it tells the driver, which then commands the master to fork a worker process to run the tests affected by those changed files. This is all performed automatically. However, to run a test file manually, you can:

1. Simply save the file! When you do, Tork tries to figure out which tests inside your newly saved test file have changed (using diff and regexps) and then attempts to run just those. To make it run all tests in your saved file, simply save the file again without changing it.

2. Type t followed by a space and the file you want to run into tork(1):

   # run all of test/some_test.rb
   t test/some_test.rb
   
   # run lines 4, 33, and 21 of test/some_test.rb
   t test/some_test.rb 4 33 21
   

3. Send a ["run_test_file"] message to tork-engine(1) using tork-remote(1):

   # run all of test/some_test.rb
   echo run_test_file test/some_test.rb | tork-remote tork-engine
   
   # run lines 4, 33, and 21 of test/some_test.rb
   echo run_test_file test/some_test.rb 4 33 21 | tork-remote tork-engine
   

Installation

gem install tork

Prerequisites

• Ruby 1.8.7 or 1.9.3 or newer.

• Operating system that supports POSIX signals and the fork() system call. To check if your system qualifies, launch irb(1) and enter the following:

  Process.respond_to? :fork  # must be true
  Signal.list.key? 'TERM'    # must be true
  Signal.list.key? 'KILL'    # must be true
  

• To make the tork-herald(1) program's filesystem monitoring more efficient:

  gem install rb-inotify  # linux
  gem install rb-fsevent  # macosx
  

Development

git clone git://github.com/sunaku/tork
cd tork
bundle install
bundle exec tork --help  # run it directly
bundle exec rake --tasks # packaging tasks

Usage

At the command line

tork --help

You can add line editing, history, and filename completion:

rlwrap -c tork

You can control tork(1) interactively from another terminal:

tork-remote tork-engine
# type your commands here, one per line.
# press Control-D to exit tork-remote(1)

You can also do the same non-interactively using a pipeline:

# run lines 4, 33, and 21 of test/some_test.rb
echo run_test_file test/some_test.rb 4 33 21 | tork-remote tork-engine

You can monitor your test processes from another terminal:

watch 'pgrep -f ^tork | xargs -r ps u'

With MiniTest

MiniTest 1.3.2 and newer contain a bug where minitest/autorun won't run any tests if someone calls Kernel#exit explicitly or simply loads a library (such as RSpec) which makes the call implicitly. Use Tork 19.0.2+ to avoid this problem or apply this patch to the minitest library to fix the problem.

With RSpec

RSpec 2.9.0 and newer contain a bug where RSpec's autorun helper won't run any specs if someone calls Kernel#exit explicitly or simply loads a library (such as Test::Unit) which makes the call implicitly. Use Tork 19.0.2+ to avoid this problem or apply this patch to the rspec-core library to fix the problem.

RSpec 2.8.0 and older contain a bug where a nonzero exit status (caused by an uncaught exception) is overridden by RSpec's Kernel#at_exit handler to be zero, thereby falsely indicating that a spec had passed. This patch fixes the problem.

With Ruby on Rails

For Rails 3 or newer, use the rails configuration helper before the test or spec helpers. Otherwise your test helper will load Rails before the specified rails configuration helper has a chance to disable class caching!

For older Rails, make sure your config/environments/test.rb file contains:

config.cache_classes = false

To use SQLite3 as your test database, install its in-memory database adapter. Otherwise, you might face these errors:

SQLite3::BusyException: database is locked

cannot start a transaction within a transaction

Configuration

Tork looks for a configuration directory named .tork/ inside its working directory. The configuration directory contains specially-named Ruby scripts, within which you can query and modify the settings for various tork programs. See the "FILES" sections in the manual pages of tork programs for details.

Note that tork does not automatically reload changes from your configuration directory. Consequently, you must restart tork if your configuration changes.

License

Released under the ISC license. See the LICENSE file for details.