From tplate at blackmesacapital.com  Wed Mar 17 19:53:56 2004
From: tplate at blackmesacapital.com (Tony Plate)
Date: Wed Mar 17 19:56:38 2004
Subject: [Rd] unit testing framework for R?
In-Reply-To: <EXCHANGEeTUgAHbx4Rr0000555e@exchange.systemsbiology.net>
References: <EXCHANGEeTUgAHbx4Rr0000555e@exchange.systemsbiology.net>
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20040317114224.056067e8@mailhost.blackmesacapital.com>

Packages can have a 'tests' directory, which can contain foo.R and 
foo.Rout.save files.  When packages are built (or checked) the output from 
running R with the commands in foo.R is compared with foo.Rout.save, and 
differences are reported.

The "Writing R Extensions" manual discusses this a little.  It suggests: 
"Use R CMD check --help (Rcmd check --help on Windows) to obtain more 
information about the usage of the R package checker. A subset of the 
checking steps can be selected by adding flags."

I've considered looking at several enhancements of the testing features: 
(1) automatically construct foo.R from foo.Rout.save (easy if the file only 
contains simple commands issued at the standard prompt); (2) allow 
specification of which test files to run; and (3) print summaries of test 
successes and failures at the end of running the selected tests.  Is there 
any wider interest in such features?

-- Tony Plate

At Wednesday 11:11 AM 3/17/2004, Paul Shannon wrote:
>In a quick search of the R website just now, I found no mention of
>a unit testing framework for R.  I hope to find something
>in the style of Java's JUnit, or Python's unittest.  Is such a
>thing available?
>
>Thanks,
>
>   - Paul Shannon
>     Institute for Systems Biology
>     Seattle
>
>______________________________________________
>R-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
>https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel


[Rd] unit testing framework for R?
Tony Plate