Software Engineering for Self-Directed Learners »

A simple way to semi-automate testing of a CLI (Command Line Interface) app is by using input/output re-direction. Here are the high-level steps:

• First, you feed the app with a sequence of test inputs that is stored in a file while redirecting the output to another file.
• Next, you compare the actual output file with another file containing the expected output.

Let's assume you are testing a CLI app called AddressBook. Here are the detailed steps:

1. Store the test input in the text file input.txt.

   Example input.txt

   ---

2. Store the output you expect from the SUT in another text file expected.txt.

   Example expected.txt

   ---

3. Run the program as given below, which will redirect the text in input.txt as the input to AddressBook and similarly, will redirect the output of AddressBook to a text file output.txt. Note that this does not require any changes in AddressBook code.

   java AddressBook < input.txt > output.txt
   

   • The way to run a CLI program differs based on the language.
     e.g., In Python, assuming the code is in AddressBook.py file, use the command
     python AddressBook.py < input.txt > output.txt

   • If you are using Windows, use a normal MS-DOS terminal (i.e., cmd.exe) to run the app, not a PowerShell window.

   More on the > operator and the < operator extra

4. Next, you compare output.txt with the expected.txt. This can be done using a utility such as Windows' FC (i.e. File Compare) command, Unix's diff command, or a GUI tool such as WinMerge.

   FC output.txt expected.txt
   

Note that the above technique is only suitable when testing CLI apps, and only if the exact output can be predetermined. If the output varies from one run to the other (e.g. it contains a time stamp), this technique will not work. In those cases, you need more sophisticated ways of automating tests.