Ubuntu Manpage: CGI::Test - CGI regression test framework

Provided by: libcgi-test-perl_1.111-2_all

NAME

       CGI::Test - CGI regression test framework

SYNOPSIS

        # In some t/script.t regression test, for instance
        use CGI::Test;
        use Test::More tests => 7;

        my $ct = CGI::Test->new(
           -base_url   => "http://some.server:1234/cgi-bin",
           -cgi_dir    => "/path/to/cgi-bin",
        );

        my $page = $ct->GET("http://some.server:1234/cgi-bin/script?arg=1");
        like $page->content_type, qr|text/html\b|, "Content type";

        my $form = $page->forms->[0];
        is $form->action, "/cgi-bin/some_target", "Form action URI";

        my $menu = $form->menu_by_name("months");
        ok $menu->is_selected("January"), "January selected";
        ok !$menu->is_selected("March"),  "March not selected";
        ok $menu->multiple,               "Menu is multi-choice";

        my $send = $form->submit_by_name("send_form");
        ok defined $send, "Send form defined";

        #
        # Now interact with the CGI
        #

        $menu->select("March");        # "click" on the March label
        my $answer = $send->press;     # "click" on the send button

        # and make sure we don't get an HTTP error
        ok $answer->is_ok, "Answer response";

DESCRIPTION

The "CGI::Test" module provides a CGI regression test framework which allows you to run your CGI programs
offline, i.e. outside a web server, and interact with them programmatically, without the need to type
data and click from a web browser.

If you're using the "CGI" module, you may be familiar with its offline testing mode. However, this mode
is appropriate for simple things, and there is no support for conducting a full session with a stateful
script. "CGI::Test" fills this gap by providing the necessary infrastructure to run CGI scripts, then
parse the output to construct objects that can be queried, and on which you can interact to "play" with
the script's control widgets, finally submitting data back. And so on...

Note that the CGI scripts you can test with "CGI::Test" need not be implemented in Perl at all. As far
as this framework is concerned, CGI scripts are executables that are run on a CGI-like environment and
which produce an output.

To use the "CGI::Test" framework, you need to configure a "CGI::Test" object to act like a web server, by
providing the URL base where CGI scripts lie on this pseudo-server, and which physical directory
corresponds to that URL base.

From then on, you may issue GET and POST requests giving an URL, and the pseudo-server returns a
"CGI::Test::Page" object representing the outcome of the request. This page may be an error, plain text,
some binary data, or an HTML page (see CGI::Test::Page for details).

The latter (an HTML page) can contain one or more CGI forms (identified by "<FORM>" tags), which are
described by instances of "CGI::Test::Form" objects (see CGI::Test::Form for details).

Forms can be queried to see whether they contain a particular type of widget (menu, text area, button,
etc...), of a particular name (that's the CGI parameter name). Once found, one may interact with a
widget as the user would from a browser. Widgets are described by polymorphic objects which conform to
the "CGI::Test::Form::Widget" type. The specific interaction that is offered depends on the dynamic type
of the object (see CGI::Test::Form::Widget for details).

An interaction with a form ends by a submission of the form data to the server, and getting a reply back.
This is done by pressing a submit button, and the press() routine returns a new page. Naturally, no
server is contacted at all within the "CGI::Test" framework, and the CGI script is ran through a proper
call to one of the GET/POST method on the "CGI::Test" object.

INTERFACE

Creation Interface
The creation routine "new()" takes the following mandatory parameters:

"-base_url" => URL of the cgi-bin directory
Defines the URL domain which is handled by "CGI::Test". This is the URL of the "cgi-bin" directory.

Note that there is no need to have something actually running on the specified host or port, and the
server name can be any host name, whether it exists or not. For instance, if you say:

-base_url => "http://foo.example.com:70/cgi-bin"

you simply declare that the "CGI::Test" object will know how to handle a GET request for, say:

http://foo.example.com:70/cgi-bin/script

and it will do so internally, without contacting "foo.example.com" on port 70...

"-cgi_dir" => path to the cgi-bin directory
Defines the physical path corresponding to the "cgi-bin" directory defined by the "-base_url"
parameter.

For instance, given the settings:

-base_url => "http://foo.example.com:70/cgi-bin",
-cgi_dir => "/home/ram/cgi/test"

then requesting

http://foo.example.com:70/cgi-bin/script

will actually run

/home/ram/cgi/test/script

Those things are really easier to understand via examples than via formal descriptions, aren't they?

The following optional arguments may also be provided:

"-cgi_env" => HASH ref
Defines additional environment variables that must be set, or changes hardwirted defaults. Some
variables like "CONTENT_TYPE" really depend on the request and will be dynamically computed by
"CGI::Test".

For instance:

-cgi_env => {
HTTP_USER_AGENT => "Mozilla/4.76",
AUTH_TYPE => "Digest",
}

See "CGI ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" for more details on which environment variables are defined, and
which may be superseded.

"-doc_dir" => path to document tree
This defines the root directory of the HTTP server, for path translation. It defaults to "/var/www".

NOTE: "CGI::Test" only serves CGI scripts for now, so this setting is not terribly useful, unless you
care about "PATH_TRANSLATED".

"-tmp_dir" => path to temporary directory
The temporary directory to use for internal files created while processing requests. Defaults to the
value of the environment variable "TMPDIR", or "/tmp" if it is not set.

Object Interface
The following methods, listed in alphabetical order, are available:

"GET" url_string [, auth_user]
Issues an HTTP GET request of the specified URL, given as the string url_string. It must be in the
http scheme, and must lie within the configured CGI space (i.e. under the base URL given at creation
time via "-base_url").

Optionally, you may specify the name of an authenticated user as the auth_user string. "CGI::Test"
will simply setup the CGI environment variable "REMOTE_USER" accordingly. Since we're in a testing
framework, you can pretend to be anyone you like. See "CGI ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES" for more
information on environment variables, and in particular "AUTH_TYPE".

"GET" returns a "CGI::Test::Page" polymorphic object, i.e. an object whose dynamic type is an heir of
"CGI::Test::Page". See CGI::Test::Page for more information on this class hierarchy.

"POST" url_string, input_data [, auth_user]
Issues an HTTP POST request of the specified URL. See "GET" above for a discussion on url_string and
auth_user, which applies to "POST" as well.

The input_data parameter must be a "CGI::Test::Input" object. It specifies the CGI parameters to be
sent to the script. Users normally don't issue POST requests manually: they are the result of
submits on forms, which are obtained via an initial GET. Nonetheless, you can create your own input
easily and issue a "faked" POST request, to see how your script might react to inconsistent (and
probably malicious) input for instance. See CGI::Test::Input to learn how to construct suitable
input.

"POST" returns a "CGI::Test::Page" polymorphic object, like "GET" does.

"base_path"
The base path in the URL space of the base URL configured at creation time. It's the URL with the
scheme, host and port information removed.

"cgi_dir"
The configured CGI root directory where scripts to be run are held.

"doc_dir"
The configured document root directory.

"host_port"
The host and port of the base URL you configured at creation time.

"split_uri" URI
Splits an URI object into server (host and port), path and query components. The path is simplified
using UNIX semantics, i.e. "/./" is ignored and stripped, and "/../" is resolved by forgetting the
path component that immediately precedes it (no attempt is made to make sure the translated path was
indeed pointing to an existing directory: simplification happens in the path space).

Returns the list (host, path, query).

"tmp_dir"
The temporary directory that is being used.

"http_headers"
Returns hashref with parsed HTTP headers received from CGI script.

CGI ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The CGI protocol defines a set of environment variables which are to be set by the web server before
invoking the script. The environment created by "CGI::Test" conforms to the CGI/1.1 specifications.

Here is a list of all the known variables. Some of those are marked read-only. It means you may choose
to set them via the "-cgi_env" switch of the "new()" routine, but your settings will have no effect and
"CGI::Test" will always compute a suitable value.

Variables are listed in alphabetical order:

"AUTH_TYPE"
The authentication scheme used to authenticate the user given by "REMOTE_USER". This variable is not
present in the environment if there was no user specified in the GET/POST requests.

By default, it is set to "Basic" when present.

"CONTENT_LENGTH"
Read-only variable, giving the length of data to be read on STDIN by POST requests (as told by
"REQUEST_METHOD"). If is not present for GET requests.

"CONTENT_TYPE"
Read-only variable, giving the MIME type of data to be read on STDIN by POST requests (as told by
"REQUEST_METHOD"). If is not present for GET requests.

"GATEWAY_INTERFACE"
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) version specification. Defaults to "CGI/1.1".

"HTTP_ACCEPT"
The set of Content-Type that are said to be accepted by the client issuing the HTTP request. Since
there is no browser making any request here, the default is set to "*/*".

It is up to your script to honour the value of this variable if it wishes to be nice with the client.

"HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET"
The charset that is said to be accepted by the client issuing the HTTP request. Since there is no
browser making any request here, the default is set to "iso-8859-1".

"HTTP_CONNECTION"
Whether the connection should be kept alive by the server or closed after this request. Defaults to
"Close", but since there's no connection and no real client...

"HTTP_HOST"
This is the host processing the HTTP request. It is a read-only variable, set to the hostname and
port parts of the requested URL.

"HTTP_USER_AGENT"
The user agent tag string. This can be used by scripts to emit code that can be understood by the
client, and is also further abused to derive the OS type where the user agent runs.

In order to be as neutral as possible, it is set to "CGI::Test" by default.

"PATH_INFO"
Read-only variable set to the extra path information part of the requested URL. Always present, even
if empty.

"PATH_TRANSLATED"
This read-only variable is only present when there is a non-empty "PATH_INFO" variable. It is simply
set to the value of "PATH_INFO" with the document rootdir path prepended to it (the value of the
"-doc_dir" creation argument).

"QUERY_STRING"
This very important read-only variable is the query string present in the requested URL. Note that
it may very well be set even for a POST request.

"REMOTE_ADDR"
The IP address of the client making the requst. Can be used to implement an access policy from
within the script. Here, given that there's no real client, the default is set to "127.0.0.1", which
is the IP of the local loopback interface.

"REMOTE_HOST"
The DNS-translated hostname of the IP address held in "REMOTE_ADDR". Here, for testing purposes, it
is not computed after "REMOTE_ADDR" but can be freely set. Defaults to "localhost".

"REMOTE_USER"
This read-only variable is only present when making an authenticated GET or POST request. Its value
is the name of the user we are supposed to have successfully authenticated, using the scheme held in
"AUTH_TYPE".

"REQUEST_METHOD"
Read-only variable, whose value is either "GET" or "POST".

"SCRIPT_FILENAME"
Read-only variable set to the filesystem path of the CGI script being run.

"SCRIPT_NAME"
Read-only variable set to the virtual path of the CGI script being run, i.e. the path given in the
requested URL.

"SERVER_NAME"
The host name running the server, which defaults to the host name present in the base URL, provided
at creation time as the "-base_url" argument.

"SERVER_PORT"
The port where the server listens, which defaults to the port present in the base URL, provided at
creation time as the "-base_url" argument. If no port was explicitely given, 80 is assumed.

"SERVER_PROTOCOL"
The protocol which must be followed when replying to the client request. Set to "HTTP/1.1" by
default.

"SERVER_SOFTWARE"
The name of the server software. Defaults to "CGI::Test".

BUGS

       There are some, most probably.  Please notify me about them.

       The following limitations (in decreasing amount of importance) are known and may be  lifted  one  day  --
       patches welcome:

       •   There is no support for cookies.  A CGI installing cookies and expecting them to be resent on further
           invocations to friendly scripts is bound to disappointment.

       •   There  is no support for plain document retrieval: only CGI scripts can be fetched by an HTTP request
           for now.

PUBLIC REPOSITORY

       CGI::Test    now    has    a    publicly    accessible    Git    server    provided    by     Github.com:
       <http://github.com/nohuhu/CGI-Test>

REPORTING BUGS

       Please use Github issue tracker to open bug reports and maintenance requests.

AUTHORS

       The original author is Raphael Manfredi.

       Steven Hilton was long time maintainer of this module.

       Current maintainer is Alex Tokarev <tokarev@cpan.org>.

LICENSE

       This  program  is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic
       License, a copy of which can be found with Perl 5.6.0.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY  WARRANTY;  without  even
       the  implied  warranty  of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the Artistic License
       for more details.