Customizing DejaGnu (DejaGnu)

4 Customizing DejaGnu

The site configuration file, site.exp, captures configuration-dependent values and propagates them to the DejaGnu test environment using Tcl variables. This ties the DejaGnu test scripts into the configure and make programs. If this file is setup correctly, it is possible to execute a testsuite merely by typing runtest.

DejaGnu supports two site.exp files. The multiple instances of site.exp are loaded in a fixed order. The first file loaded is the local file site.exp, and then the optional global site.exp file as pointed to by the DEJAGNU environment variable.

There is an optional global site.exp, containing configuration values that apply to DejaGnu site-wide. runtest loads these values first. The global site.exp contains the default values for all targets and hosts supported by DejaGnu. This global file is identified by setting the environment variable DEJAGNU to the name of the file. If DEJAGNU is set, but the file cannot be located, an error will be raised and runtest will abort.

Any directory containing a configured testsuite also has a local site.exp, capturing configuration values specific to the tool being tested. Since runtest loads these values last, the individual test configuration can either rely on and use, or override, any of the global values from the global site.exp file.

You can usually generate or update the testsuite’s local site.exp by typing make site.exp in the testsuite directory, after the test suite is configured.

You can also have a file in your home directory called .dejagnurc. This gets loaded after the other config files. Usually this is used for personal stuff, like setting the all_flag so all the output gets printed, or your own verbosity levels. This file is usually restricted to setting command line options.

You can further override the default values in a user-editable section of any site.exp, or by setting variables on the runtest command line.