From: Al <jasnow1@...>
Date: 2010-01-01T06:00:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Automated testing of visual library (ncurses)

Check out Expect (TCL extension; http://expect.nist.gov/) if you are
only charactor based.

On Dec 31, 3:34 pm, Seebs <usenet-nos...@seebs.net> wrote:
> On 2009-12-31, (rkumar) Sentinel <sentinel.2...@gmx.com> wrote:
>
> > Screen's "C-a h" creates a hardcopy *sans* attributes.
> > But i guess that's a start - I guess one can't have everything.
> > If i can find a way to get part coverage, that would help.
>
> It's at least a start.
>
> > Unfortunately there's so much that's interactive. Clicking, typing text,
> > scrolling and then typing text.
>
> Hmm.
>
> > Perhaps with a screen hardcopy, I can at least see that all test screens
> > load and display the basic widgets correctly positioned with starting
> > data.
>
> Possibly.  You could do hardcopies basically every "frame", too.  e.g.,
> send the first letter of a password, verify that the hardcopy now shows
> the *, or whatever.
>
> You could probably also hack screen to write a second hardcopy file which
> is a grid of attributes in some notation, so you could compare the pair
> of files.
>
> > btw, is there something i am missing in your statement "which is
> > reliable at ***obeying curses commands***".
>
> Essential issues:
>
> 1.  There is no guarantee that two correct sets of curses commands which
> produce the same exact final screen output do so by sending the same
> sequence of characters.  There may be many possible ways to, say,
> clear all the characters on a given line.  Depending on non-obvious
> externalities, or current cursor location, you might see anything from
> a sequence of spaces to a special line-clear command... Curses is
> specifically designed to "optimize" these things, meaning that the
> sequence of characters produced is not necessarily consistent for a
> given output.
> 2.  Related to the above, curses can and will overwrite things.  So
> imagine that curses were to send:
>         foo^H^H^Hbar
> You probably want to treat this precisely the same as just sending "bar".
>
> So basically, you want a thing which interprets the terminal escape
> sequences curses generates and tells you what the final output looks
> like.  Happily, screen does that (at least for vt100).
>
> -s
> --
> Copyright 2009, all wrongs reversed.  Peter Seebach / usenet-nos...@seebs.nethttp://www.seebs.net/log/<-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictureshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!