Flexible Metadata Format

The fmf Python module and command line tool implement a flexible format for defining metadata in plain text files which can be stored close to the source code and structured in a hierarchical way with support for inheritance.

Although the proposal initially originated from user stories centered around test execution, the format is general and thus can be used in broader scenarios, e.g. test coverage mapping.

Using this approach it's also possible to combine both test execution metadata and test coverage information. Thanks to elasticity and hierarchy it provides ability to organize data into well-sized text documents while preventing duplication.

Command line usage is straightforward:

fmf command [options]

There are following commands available:

fmf ls      List identifiers of available objects
fmf show    Show metadata of available objects
fmf init    Initialize a new metadata tree
fmf clean   Remove cache directory and its content

List names of all objects stored in the metadata tree:

fmf ls

Show all test metadata (with 'test' attribute defined):

fmf show --key test

Show metadata for all tree nodes (not only leaves):

fmf show --key test --whole

List all attributes for the /recursion tests:

fmf show --key test --name /recursion

Show all covered requirements:

fmf show --key requirement --key coverage

Search for all tests with the Tier1 tag defined and show a brief summary of what was found:

fmf show --key test --filter tags:Tier1 --verbose

Use arbitrary Python expressions to access deeper objects and create more complex conditions:

fmf show --condition "execute['how'] == 'shell'"

Initialize a new metadata tree in the current directory:

fmf init

Check help message of individual commands for the full list of available options.

Here is the list of the most frequently used options.

Limit which metadata should be listed.

For filtering regular expressions can be used as well. See pydoc fmf.filter for advanced filtering options.

Choose the best format for showing the metadata.

See online documentation for details about custom format.

Various utility options.

Check help message of individual commands for the full list of available options.

The fmf package is available in Fedora and EPEL:

dnf install fmf

Install the latest version from the Copr repository:

dnf copr enable psss/fmf
dnf install fmf

or use PIP:

pip install fmf

See documentation for more details about installation options.

Here is the list of environment variables understood by fmf:

FMF_CACHE_DIRECTORY

Directory used to cache git clone calls for fmf identifiers.

Git: https://github.com/psss/fmf

Docs: http://fmf.readthedocs.io/

Issues: https://github.com/psss/fmf/issues

Releases: https://github.com/psss/fmf/releases

Copr: http://copr.fedoraproject.org/coprs/psss/fmf

PIP: https://pypi.org/project/fmf/

Travis: https://travis-ci.org/psss/fmf

Coveralls: https://coveralls.io/github/psss/fmf

Petr Šplíchal, Miro Hrončok, Jakub Krysl, Jan Ščotka, Alois Mahdal, Cleber Rosa, Miroslav Vadkerti, Lukáš Zachar, František Nečas, Evgeny Fedin and Pablo Martin.

Copyright (c) 2018-2021 Red Hat, Inc.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.