Introduction

Lux (LUcid eXpect scripting) provides scripting with an Expect-style execution of commands in a powerful but simple fashion. See [Expect][] for more info about the origin.

With Lux it is possible to

simplify automated testing
control interactive programs by sending textual input to them and using [regular expression][]s to ensure that their output matches the expectations
perform detailed post mortem analyzis of test suite results
interactively debug and trace single test cases
get editor support for editing scripts by using the [Emacs][] mode

The tool is written in [Erlang/OTP][] and requires its runtime environment.

See the file lux.html for the full documentation or view it online on GitHub.

A sample script

Here is an example of script (lux/examples/intro.lux) which starts a couple of concurrent shells and sends text to them with the ! command and matches expected output with ?.

[doc Test of single and multi line regular expressions]

# A global variable is accessible in all shells
[global file=removeme.txt]

[shell single]
    # The terminal echoes all input
    !echo foo
    ?foo

[shell multi]
    # bar is indented 4 characters
    !echo "foo"      > $file
    !echo "    bar" >> $file
    !echo "fum"     >> $file
    !cat $file

    # The first double quote char defines the
    # first column of the multi line regexp
    """?
    foo
        bar
    fum
    """

# Let single be the active shell again
[shell single]
    ?^foo

# Cleanup is executed regardless of the script succeeds or fails
[cleanup]
    # Match of command exit status. Observe the double dollar sign.
    !rm -f $file
    !echo ==$$?==
    ?^==0==

How to run the script

Run a single script like this:

/home/hm> lux lux/examples/intro.lux

summary log       : /home/hm/lux_logs/run_2012_03_22_12_44_42/lux_summary.log

test case         : /home/hm/lux/examples/intro.lux
progress          : ..:..:....:.....:...:...:..:..:..:.....c......:...:...:..:....
result            : SUCCESS

successful        : 1
summary           : SUCCESS

file:///home/hm/lux_logs/run_2012_03_22_12_44_42/lux_summary.log.html

/home/hm>

In this run we got a (brief) progress report of the test case on stdout and a link to a summary log containing (lots of) details.

How to assemble the history of multiple runs

In a nightly build environment it might be difficult to pinpoint when a certain test case/suite started to fail. This process is greatly simplified by running lux with the --history option as it will assemble all test results as a timeline (interleaved with changeset identities if provided with --revision).

/home/hm> lux --revision svn_4711 --run jenkins_17 lux/examples
/home/hm> lux --revision svn_4712 --run jenkins_20 lux/examples/intro.lux
/home/hm> lux --revision svn_4712 --run jenkins_20 lux/examples/fail.lux
/home/hm> lux --revision svn_4715 --run jenkins_22 lux/examples
/home/hm> lux --history .
Assembling history of logs in /home/hm.......4 test runs...ok

file:///home/hm/lux_history.html

kevinmeziere / lux

Introduction

A sample script

How to run the script

How to assemble the history of multiple runs

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