gutcheck test framework

                            =======================

Running existing testcases

--------------------------

The test harness (the program that runs a test) is called gc-test. The various

testcases are stored in multiple text files, typically with a .tst extension.

To run a testcase when all of gutcheck, gc-test and the testcase file are

in the current directory simply do something like:

% gc-test missing-space.tst

from a command prompt. Under MS-Windows, this is called a command window and

the prompt will normally look slightly different, eg.,

C:\DP> gc-test missing-space.tst

To run all the tests in the current directory, do something like this:

% gc-test *.tst

If gutcheck is not in the current directory, then you can set an environment

variable (GUTCHECK) to point at it. For example, on MS-Windows you might do:

C:\DP> set GUTCHECK=C:\GUTCHECK\GUTCHECK.EXE

C:\DP> gc-test *.tst

Writing your own testcases

--------------------------

Writing a new testcase is pretty painless. Most testcases follow this simple

pattern:

		┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐

		│**************** INPUT ****************   │

		│"Look!John, over there!"                  │

		│**************** EXPECTED ****************│

		│                                          │

		│"Look!John, over there!"                  │

		│    Line 1 column 6 - Missing space?      │

		└──────────────────────────────────────────┘

The sixteen asterisks in this example form what is known as the "flag". This

flag must come before and after all tags (eg., INPUT and EXPECTED). In the

unlikely event that you need sixteen asterisks at the start of line of text,

then simply choose a different flag and use it throughout the file (flags

can be any sequence of ASCII characters except control codes and space).

Note that the header that gutcheck normally outputs is not included in the

expected output. This avoids problems with not knowing beforehand the name

of the file that gutcheck will be asked to look at (and saves typing!).

gutcheck prints a blank line before each warning. These are not part of the

header and so do need to be included.

To test that gutcheck produces no output, you still need to include

an EXPECTED tag, just with no text following it. If there is no EXPECTED

tag, then gc-test will consider that no expectation exists and won't check

the output at all.

There is no support yet for non-ASCII testcases, embedded linefeeds,

passing command line options to gutcheck or for testcases which are

expected to fail.