Regression/Unit/System Test Hook

This is a very smart proposal. I hope someone moves this forward. more relevant links:

- simpletest framework
- php unit testing intro

I've uploaded a 'simpletest' module to Contrib which provides a unit testing framework for drupal. Please give it a try and provide feedback. Especially try to write a test and see if the framework is useful. Here is the README:

Description
------------------
A framework for running unit tests in Drupal.

Status
------------------
One test has been written - 'user validation'. We need more.

Requirements
----------------

- Install the simpletest framework to a new directory called 'simpletest' right under Drupal root.
You can find it at http://www.lastcraft.com/simple_test.php

Install
-----------------------

- Copy this module package to your /modules directory
- Activate the simpletest.module
- Visit the admin/simpletest page

Simpletest hook
-----------------------

This module offers a new 'simpletest' hook. Modules implementing this hook should an array of paths which
point to test files. These paths should be relative to the /simpletest directory.

Writing Tests
-----------------------
Please write some tests. I'm a bit new at this and haven't decided on a worthy approach.

Author
---------------------

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

Description
------------------
A framework for running unit tests in Drupal.

Status
------------------
No tests have been written. This framework should work though.

Requirements
----------------

- Install the simpletest framework to a new directory called 'simpletest' right under Drupal root.
You can find it at http://www.lastcraft.com/simple_test.php

Install
-----------------------

- Copy this module package to your /modules directory
- Activate the simpletest.module
- Visit the admin/simpletest page

Simpletest hook
-----------------------

This module offers a new 'simpletest' hook. Modules implementing this hook should an array of paths which
point to test files. These paths should be relative to the /simpletest directory.

Writing Tests
-----------------------
Please write some tests. I'm a bit new at this and haven't decided on a worthy approach.

I've very interested in this, and plan to make some efforts related to it. I am, however, cautious about where to store the actual test files. Traditionally, in Perl, they're usually in a directory called t/, with the running order of the tests defined by the file name (00_file.t runs before 10_url.t, for example). In the current Drupal file structure, there doesn't seem to be a proper place to put these, especially considering user contributed modules (for core, we could certainly create a root /t/ directory for all the core modules, but I feel their "distance" from the actual code in /modules/example.module would make it too easy to forget the need for constant pruning and addition - bad tests are worse than no tests at all).

One possible suggestion would be per-module directories, similar to flexinode (which has modules/flexinode/flexinode.module, and a bunch of .inc files). For example, modules/watchdog.module would now be modules/watchdog/watchdog.module, modules/watchdog/t/01_view.t, modules/watchdog/t/02_blah.t, and so forth. For watchdog, at least, this seems like over-organization, as there'd never be something BESIDES watchdog.module in /modules/watchdog/... so why create a whole 'nother subdirectory?

User-contribution wise, I'd like to think that modules/NAME/NAME.module, and modules/NAME/t/ are stronger, as it more closely follows the idea of a downloadable package (which would contain .sql files and READMEs and CHANGELOGs, etc.). The t/ would keep things more organized for contributors, and thus, the same organization scheme should be applied to core, even though it runs the risk of looking sparse and overthought.

Comments?

Moving from x.y.z queue to 6.x-dev. Also moving this into simpletest's queue.

see http://drupal.org/simpletest