It silences HUnit's output, but will tell you what happens when there is a failure- which I think is what you want. There are a few available output formatters if you don't like the default output, or you can write your own output formatter. BDD is really a red herring. Instead of using function names to name tests you can use strings, which are inherently more descriptive. In chell you already have `assertions "numbers"`, in hspec it would be `it "numbers"`. The preferred style it to remove `test test_Numbers and the test_Numbers definition` which are redundant in this case, and instead place that inline where you define the suite, although that is optional. So I really can't tell any difference betwee "BDD" and "pass/fail assertions". You still just use assertions in hspec. On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 7:36 AM, John Millikin wrote:

I have, but it's not quite what I'm looking for:

- I don't want to silence HUnit's output, I just don't want anything to show on the console when a test *passes*. Showing output on a failure is good.

- I'm not interested in BDD. Not to say it's not useful, but it doesn't match my style of testing (which uses mostly pass/fail assertions and properties).

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 07:18, Greg Weber wrote:

...

Hi John, I am wondering if you have seen the hspec package? [1] It seems to solve all the problems you are with chell, including that it silences Hunit output. We are using it for all the Yesod tests now. Thanks, Greg Weber [1]: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/hspec/0.6.1/doc/html/Test-Hspec....

I am confused also, as to both what output you don't like that motivated chell and what exactly hspec silences :) Suffice to say I am able to get a small relevant error message on failure with hspec. I am adding the hspec maintainer to this e-mail- he can answer any of your questions. On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 8:03 AM, John Millikin wrote:

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 07:52, Greg Weber wrote:

...

It silences HUnit's output, but will tell you what happens when there is a failure- which I think is what you want. There are a few available output formatters if you don't like the default output, or you can write your own output formatter.

I'm a bit confused. From what I can tell, HUnit does not output *anything* just from running a test -- the result has to be printed manually. What are you silencing?

...

BDD is really a red herring. Instead of using function names to name tests you can use strings, which are inherently more descriptive. In chell you already have `assertions "numbers"`, in hspec it would be `it "numbers"`. The preferred style it to remove `test test_Numbers and the test_Numbers definition` which are redundant in this case, and instead place that inline where you define the suite, although that is optional. So I really can't tell any difference betwee "BDD" and "pass/fail assertions". You still just use assertions in hspec.

Is this different than the "--hide-successes" flag for test-framework? Looks like it was added a few months back: https://github.com/batterseapower/test-framework/commit/afd7eeced9a4777293af... -n On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 8:21 AM, John Millikin wrote:

The output I didn't like wasn't coming from HUnit, it was coming from the test aggregator I used (test-framework). It prints one line per test case run, whether it passed or failed.

That means every time I ran my test suite, it would print *thousands* of lines to the terminal. Any failure immediately scrolled up and out of sight, so I'd have to either Ctrl-C and hunt it down, or wait for the final report when all the tests had finished running.

Chell does the same thing as test-framework (aggregates tests into suites, runs them, reports results), but does so quietly. It only reports failed and aborted tests.

As Greg pointed out, HSpec does have an option to output just the failed tests. I looked at the example on the Chell project home page and converted the example tests into these hspec style specs:

import Test.Hspec (Specs, descriptions, describe, it) import Test.Hspec.Runner (hHspecWithFormat) import Test.Hspec.Formatters (failed_examples) import Test.Hspec.HUnit import Test.HUnit import System.IO (stdout)

-- some functions to test equal = (==) greater = (>) equalWithin = undefined equalLines = (==)

specs :: IO Specs specs = descriptions [ describe "number comparison module" [ it "can check for equality" (assertBool "1 should equal 1" $ equal 1 1), it "can compare order" (assertBool "2 should be greater than 1" $ greater 2 1), it "can compare eqauality with floating point numbers" (assertBool "1.0001 should be close enough to 1.0" $ equalWithin 1.0001 1.0 0.01) ], describe "text comparison module" [ it "can compare strings for equality" (let str1 = "foo\nbar\nbaz" :: String str2 = "foo\nbar\nqux" :: String in assertBool "foo\\nbar\\nbaz shouldn't equal foo\\nbar\\nqux" $ equalLines str1 str2) ]]

main = hHspecWithFormat (failed_examples True) stdout specs

And when run, got the following output in red text since it's only reporting failures: ] x can compare eqauality with floating point numbers FAILED [1] ] x can compare strings for equality FAILED [2] ] ] 1) number comparison module can compare eqauality with floating point numbers FAILED ] Prelude.undefined ] ] 2) text comparison module can compare strings for equality FAILED ] foo\nbar\nbaz shouldn't equal foo\nbar\nqux ] ] Finished in 0.0000 seconds ] ] 4 examples, 2 failures You can write provide your own formatter if that's not what you'd like to see. You also don't have to use the HUnit assertion text either; you could use the following function to make your specs even more like your Chell example, at the cost of losing the extra output description:

assert = assertBool ""

Hspec uses HUnit TestCases and assertions but also supports QuickCheck properties almost exactly the same way Chell does. The hspec project homepage (https://github.com/trystan/hspec) has more examples, including the specs for hspec itself. Trystan Spangler From: "John Millikin" To: "Greg Weber" Cc: "trystan s" , haskell-cafe@haskell.org Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 8:21:52 AM Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: Chell: A quiet test runner (low-output alternative to test-framework) On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 08:17, Greg Weber wrote:

I am confused also, as to both what output you don't like that motivated chell and what exactly hspec silences :) Suffice to say I am able to get a small relevant error message on failure with hspec. I am adding the hspec maintainer to this e-mail- he can answer any of your questions.

The output I didn't like wasn't coming from HUnit, it was coming from the test aggregator I used (test-framework). It prints one line per test case run, whether it passed or failed. That means every time I ran my test suite, it would print *thousands* of lines to the terminal. Any failure immediately scrolled up and out of sight, so I'd have to either Ctrl-C and hunt it down, or wait for the final report when all the tests had finished running. Chell does the same thing as test-framework (aggregates tests into suites, runs them, reports results), but does so quietly. It only reports failed and aborted tests.