NAME Test::XT - Generate best practice author tests SYNOPSIS use Test::XT 'WriteXT'; WriteXT( 'Test::Pod' => 't/pod.t', 'Test::CPAN::Meta' => 't/meta.t', 'Test::MinimumVersion' => 't/minimumversion.t', 'Test::Perl::Critic' => 't/critic.t', ); DESCRIPTION A number of Test modules have been written over the years to support authors. Typically, these modules have standard short test scripts documented in them that you can cut and paste into your distribution. Unfortunately almost all of these cut-and-paste test scripts are wrong. Either the test script runs during install time, or it runs with an out-of-date version of the test module, or the author adds the test modules as an (unnecesary) dependency at install time, or for automated testing. Test::XT is a module intended for use in code generators, release automation and other ancillary systems. It generates an appropriate test script for various testing modules that runs in the appropriate mode for each type of execution environment. 1. End User Install At installation time, test scripts should never ever run, even if the test modules are installed and available. 2. Automated Testing # Enable automated testing $ENV{AUTOMATED_TESTING} = 1 During automated testing we should run the tests, but only if the testing module are already installed and at the current/latest version. However, we should not install dependencies during automated testing, because failing to install a testing dependency means less runs on your code when the entire point of the author tests is to improve the standard of testing, not reduce it. 3. Release/Author Testing # Enable author tests $ENV{RELEASE_TESTING} = 1; All tests should run at release time by the author. Despite this, the dependencies STILL should not be checked for in your Makefile.PL or Build.PL, because you could end up accidentally having these extra dependencies bleed through into your published META.yml. This would cause inaccuracies in tools that track dependencies across the entire repository via the META.yml files. SUPPORT Bugs should be submitted via the CPAN bug tracker, located at For general comments, contact the author. AUTHOR Adam Kennedy COPYRIGHT Copyright 2009 Adam Kennedy. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.