Various tests, particularly the client program tests
under src/bin
, use the Perl TAP tools and are run
using the Perl testing program prove
. You can pass
command-line options to prove
by setting
the make
variable PROVE_FLAGS
, for example:
make -C src/bin check PROVE_FLAGS='--timer'
See the manual page of prove
for more information.
The make
variable PROVE_TESTS
can be used to define a whitespace-separated list of paths relative
to the Makefile
invoking prove
to run the specified subset of tests instead of the default
t/*.pl
. For example:
make check PROVE_TESTS='t/001_test1.pl t/003_test3.pl'
The TAP tests require the Perl module IPC::Run
.
This module is available from CPAN or an operating system package.
Generically speaking, the TAP tests will test the executables in a
previously-installed installation tree if you say make
installcheck
, or will build a new local installation tree from
current sources if you say make check
. In either
case they will initialize a local instance (data directory) and
transiently run a server in it. Some of these tests run more than one
server. Thus, these tests can be fairly resource-intensive.
It's important to realize that the TAP tests will start test server(s)
even when you say make installcheck
; this is unlike
the traditional non-TAP testing infrastructure, which expects to use an
already-running test server in that case. Some PostgreSQL
subdirectories contain both traditional-style and TAP-style tests,
meaning that make installcheck
will produce a mix of
results from temporary servers and the already-running test server.