Adding new tests
In general, we expect every PR that fixes a bug in rustc to come accompanied by a regression test of some kind. This test should fail in master but pass after the PR. These tests are really useful for preventing us from repeating the mistakes of the past.
To add a new test, the first thing you generally do is to create a file, typically a Rust source file. Test files have a particular structure:
- They should have some kind of comment explaining what the test is about;
- next, they can have one or more header commands, which are special comments that the test interpreter knows how to interpret.
- finally, they have the Rust source. This may have various error annotations which indicate expected compilation errors or warnings.
Depending on the test suite, there may be some other details to be aware of:
- For the
ui
test suite, you need to generate reference output files.
What kind of test should I add?
It can be difficult to know what kind of test to use. Here are some rough heuristics:
- Some tests have specialized needs:
- need to run gdb or lldb? use the
debuginfo
test suite - need to inspect LLVM IR or MIR IR? use the
codegen
ormir-opt
test suites - need to run rustdoc? Prefer a
rustdoc
test - need to inspect the resulting binary in some way? Then use
run-make
- need to run gdb or lldb? use the
- For most other things, a
ui
(orui-fulldeps
) test is to be preferred:ui
tests subsume both run-pass, compile-fail, and parse-fail tests- in the case of warnings or errors,
ui
tests capture the full output, which makes it easier to review but also helps prevent "hidden" regressions in the output
Naming your test
We have not traditionally had a lot of structure in the names of
tests. Moreover, for a long time, the rustc test runner did not
support subdirectories (it now does), so test suites like
src/test/run-pass
have a huge mess of files in them. This is not
considered an ideal setup.
For regression tests – basically, some random snippet of code that
came in from the internet – we often just name the test after the
issue. For example, src/test/run-pass/issue-12345.rs
. If possible,
though, it is better if you can put the test into a directory that
helps identify what piece of code is being tested here (e.g.,
borrowck/issue-12345.rs
is much better), or perhaps give it a more
meaningful name. Still, do include the issue number somewhere.
When writing a new feature, create a subdirectory to store your tests. For example, if you are implementing RFC 1234 ("Widgets"), then it might make sense to put the tests in directories like:
src/test/ui/rfc1234-widgets/
src/test/run-pass/rfc1234-widgets/
- etc
In other cases, there may already be a suitable directory. (The proper directory structure to use is actually an area of active debate.)
Comment explaining what the test is about
When you create a test file, include a comment summarizing the point of the test at the start of the file. This should highlight which parts of the test are more important, and what the bug was that the test is fixing. Citing an issue number is often very helpful.
This comment doesn't have to be super extensive. Just something like "Regression test for #18060: match arms were matching in the wrong order." might already be enough.
These comments are very useful to others later on when your test breaks, since they often can highlight what the problem is. They are also useful if for some reason the tests need to be refactored, since they let others know which parts of the test were important (often a test must be rewritten because it no longer tests what is was meant to test, and then it's useful to know what it was meant to test exactly).
Header commands: configuring rustc
Header commands are special comments that the test runner knows how to
interpret. They must appear before the Rust source in the test. They
are normally put after the short comment that explains the point of
this test. For example, this test uses the // compile-flags
command
to specify a custom flag to give to rustc when the test is compiled:
// Test the behavior of `0 - 1` when overflow checks are disabled.
// compile-flags: -Coverflow-checks=off
fn main() {
let x = 0 - 1;
...
}
Ignoring tests
These are used to ignore the test in some situations, which means the test won't be compiled or run.
ignore-X
whereX
is a target detail or stage will ignore the test accordingly (see below)only-X
is likeignore-X
, but will only run the test on that target or stageignore-pretty
will not compile the pretty-printed test (this is done to test the pretty-printer, but might not always work)ignore-test
always ignores the testignore-lldb
andignore-gdb
will skip a debuginfo test on that debugger.ignore-gdb-version
can be used to ignore the test when certain gdb versions are used
Some examples of X
in ignore-X
:
- Architecture:
aarch64
,arm
,asmjs
,mips
,wasm32
,x86_64
,x86
, ... - OS:
android
,emscripten
,freebsd
,ios
,linux
,macos
,windows
, ... - Environment (fourth word of the target triple):
gnu
,msvc
,musl
. - Pointer width:
32bit
,64bit
. - Stage:
stage0
,stage1
,stage2
.
Other Header Commands
Here is a list of other header commands. This list is not
exhaustive. Header commands can generally be found by browsing the
TestProps
structure found in header.rs
from the compiletest
source.
run-rustfix
for UI tests, indicates that the test produces structured suggestions. The test writer should create a.fixed
file, which contains the source with the suggestions applied. When the test is run, compiletest first checks that the correct lint/warning is generated. Then, it applies the suggestion and compares against.fixed
(they must match). Finally, the fixed source is compiled, and this compilation is required to succeed. The.fixed
file can also be generated automatically with the--bless
option, discussed below.min-gdb-version
specifies the minimum gdb version required for this test; see alsoignore-gdb-version
min-lldb-version
specifies the minimum lldb version required for this testrust-lldb
causes the lldb part of the test to only be run if the lldb in use contains the Rust pluginno-system-llvm
causes the test to be ignored if the system llvm is usedmin-llvm-version
specifies the minimum llvm version required for this testmin-system-llvm-version
specifies the minimum system llvm version required for this test; the test is ignored if the system llvm is in use and it doesn't meet the minimum version. This is useful when an llvm feature has been backported to rust-llvmignore-llvm-version
can be used to skip the test when certain LLVM versions are used. This takes one or two arguments; the first argument is the first version to ignore. If no second argument is given, all subsequent versions are ignored; otherwise, the second argument is the last version to ignore.compile-pass
for UI tests, indicates that the test is supposed to compile, as opposed to the default where the test is supposed to error out.compile-flags
passes extra command-line args to the compiler, e.g.compile-flags -g
which forces debuginfo to be enabled.should-fail
indicates that the test should fail; used for "meta testing", where we test the compiletest program itself to check that it will generate errors in appropriate scenarios. This header is ignored for pretty-printer tests.gate-test-X
whereX
is a feature marks the test as "gate test" for feature X. Such tests are supposed to ensure that the compiler errors when usage of a gated feature is attempted without the proper#![feature(X)]
tag. Each unstable lang feature is required to have a gate test.
Error annotations
Error annotations specify the errors that the compiler is expected to emit. They are "attached" to the line in source where the error is located.
~
: Associates the following error level and message with the current line~|
: Associates the following error level and message with the same line as the previous comment~^
: Associates the following error level and message with the previous line. Each caret (^
) that you add adds a line to this, so~^^^^^^^
is seven lines up.
The error levels that you can have are:
ERROR
WARNING
NOTE
HELP
andSUGGESTION
*
* Note: SUGGESTION
must follow immediately after HELP
.
Revisions
Certain classes of tests support "revisions" (as of the time of this writing, this includes run-pass, compile-fail, run-fail, and incremental, though incremental tests are somewhat different). Revisions allow a single test file to be used for multiple tests. This is done by adding a special header at the top of the file:
# #![allow(unused_variables)] #fn main() { // revisions: foo bar baz #}
This will result in the test being compiled (and tested) three times,
once with --cfg foo
, once with --cfg bar
, and once with --cfg baz
. You can therefore use #[cfg(foo)]
etc within the test to tweak
each of these results.
You can also customize headers and expected error messages to a particular
revision. To do this, add [foo]
(or bar
, baz
, etc) after the //
comment, like so:
# #![allow(unused_variables)] #fn main() { // A flag to pass in only for cfg `foo`: //[foo]compile-flags: -Z verbose #[cfg(foo)] fn test_foo() { let x: usize = 32_u32; //[foo]~ ERROR mismatched types } #}
Note that not all headers have meaning when customized to a revision.
For example, the ignore-test
header (and all "ignore" headers)
currently only apply to the test as a whole, not to particular
revisions. The only headers that are intended to really work when
customized to a revision are error patterns and compiler flags.
Guide to the UI tests
The UI tests are intended to capture the compiler's complete output,
so that we can test all aspects of the presentation. They work by
compiling a file (e.g., ui/hello_world/main.rs
),
capturing the output, and then applying some normalization (see
below). This normalized result is then compared against reference
files named ui/hello_world/main.stderr
and
ui/hello_world/main.stdout
. If either of those files doesn't exist,
the output must be empty (that is actually the case for
this particular test). If the test run fails, we will print out
the current output, but it is also saved in
build/<target-triple>/test/ui/hello_world/main.stdout
(this path is
printed as part of the test failure message), so you can run diff
and so forth.
Tests that do not result in compile errors
By default, a UI test is expected not to compile (in which case,
it should contain at least one //~ ERROR
annotation). However, you
can also make UI tests where compilation is expected to succeed, and
you can even run the resulting program. Just add one of the following
header commands:
// compile-pass
– compilation should succeed but do not run the resulting binary// run-pass
– compilation should succeed and we should run the resulting binary
Editing and updating the reference files
If you have changed the compiler's output intentionally, or you are
making a new test, you can pass --bless
to the test subcommand. E.g.
if some tests in src/test/ui
are failing, you can run
./x.py test --stage 1 src/test/ui --bless
to automatically adjust the .stderr
, .stdout
or .fixed
files of
all tests. Of course you can also target just specific tests with the
--test-args your_test_name
flag, just like when running the tests.
Normalization
The normalization applied is aimed at eliminating output difference between platforms, mainly about filenames:
- the test directory is replaced with
$DIR
- all backslashes (
) are converted to forward slashes (
/
) (for Windows) - all CR LF newlines are converted to LF
Sometimes these built-in normalizations are not enough. In such cases, you may provide custom normalization rules using the header commands, e.g.
# #![allow(unused_variables)] #fn main() { // normalize-stdout-test: "foo" -> "bar" // normalize-stderr-32bit: "fn\(\) \(32 bits\)" -> "fn\(\) \($$PTR bits\)" // normalize-stderr-64bit: "fn\(\) \(64 bits\)" -> "fn\(\) \($$PTR bits\)" #}
This tells the test, on 32-bit platforms, whenever the compiler writes
fn() (32 bits)
to stderr, it should be normalized to read fn() ($PTR bits)
instead. Similar for 64-bit. The replacement is performed by regexes using
default regex flavor provided by regex
crate.
The corresponding reference file will use the normalized output to test both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms:
...
|
= note: source type: fn() ($PTR bits)
= note: target type: u16 (16 bits)
...
Please see ui/transmute/main.rs
and main.stderr
for a
concrete usage example.
Besides normalize-stderr-32bit
and -64bit
, one may use any target
information or stage supported by ignore-X
here as well (e.g.
normalize-stderr-windows
or simply normalize-stderr-test
for unconditional
replacement).