README.md.src

Introduction
============

Lux (LUcid eXpect scripting) is a test automation framework with
Expect style execution of commands. See [Expect][] for more info about
the origin.

With Lux it is possible to

* simplify automated testing
* control interactive programs by sending textual input to them and
  using [regular expression][]s to ensure that their output matches the
  expectations
* perform detailed post mortem analyzis of test suite results
* interactively debug and trace single test cases
* get editor support for editing scripts by using the [Emacs][] mode

The tool is written in [Erlang/OTP][] and requires its runtime
environment.

See the file **lux.html** for the full documentation or view it online
on [GitHub](https://github.com/hawk/lux/blob/master/doc/lux.md).

A sample script
---------------

Here is an example of a test script. It starts couple of concurrent
shells, sends text to them with the `!` command and matches expected
output with `?`.

#include <examples/intro.lux>

How to run the script
---------------------

Run a single script like this:

#eval-include lux examples/intro.lux

In this run we got a (brief) progress report of the test case on
stdout and a link to a summary log containing (lots of) details.

How to assemble the history of multiple runs
--------------------------------------------

In a nightly build environment it might be difficult to pinpoint when
a certain test case/suite started to fail. This process is greatly
simplified by running `lux` with the `--history` option as it will
assemble all test results as a timeline (interleaved with change-set
identities if provided with `--revision`).

#eval-silent  lux --revision svn_4711 --run jenkins_17 examples

#eval-silent  lux --revision svn_4712 --run jenkins_20 examples/intro.lux

#eval-silent  lux --revision svn_4712 --run jenkins_20 examples/fail.lux

#eval-silent  lux --revision svn_4715 --run jenkins_22 examples

#eval-include lux --history .