For a recent project (Autobench), I wanted a very simple way to run some simple tests against my CLI output. I know there are a number of these kinds of things out there, but most of the ones I looked at were more complex then I wanted. To start, I created a basic shell script to test my CLI, but as I began to add to it, and want more from it, I decided to take a few minutes and build a pseudo-framework out of it.

I call it a "pseudo-framework" because it's really more of a helper, which gives you a handfull of assertions to run against bash commands. Well, that and it doesn't really have a name.

cd /path/to/project/tests
wget https://raw.github.com/jmervine/CLIunit/master/CLIunit.sh
chmod 755 CLIunit.sh

A basic test file looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
function run_tests {
####################################################
# Tests go here.
####################################################
  COMMAND="/path/to/your/command"
  assert_grep "$COMMAND" "Usage" \
    "deplay usage without params"
  assert_grep "$COMMAND --help" "Usage" \
    "deplay usage with help"
  assert_grep "$COMMAND --arg2 foobar" "Usage" \
    "deplay usage without required arg"
  refute_grep "$COMMAND --arg1 foobar" "Usage" \
    "work with required arg"
####################################################
}
source ./tests/CLIunit.sh

Then simply run this script: bash ./tests/command_test.sh

Here's a full list of assertions at the time of this writing:

• assert "CMD" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• refute "CMD" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• assert_equal "FIRST" "SECOND" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• refute_equal "FIRST" "SECOND" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• assert_numeq "FIRST" "SECOND" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• refute_numeq "FIRST" "SECOND" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• assert_grep "CMD" "GREP" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• refute_grep "CMD" "GREP" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• assert_file "FILE" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• refute_file "FILE" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• assert_dir "DIR" "FAIL MESSAGE"
• refute_dir "DIR" "FAIL MESSAGE"

Currently, assert_grep and refute_grep only support a single word, no spaces. I'm sure there's a simple solution to this, but I haven't had a change to troubleshoot it yet and it wasn't an issue for my use case.