Update the testing docs

Created on 22 May 2008, almost 17 years ago
Updated 19 March 2025, 17 days ago

I got an e-mail about where to jump in with helping to push core's testing efforts forward, and of course one of the prime ways to do this is with helping with documentation. So here's how to do that.

1. http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 is the forthcoming "How to write tests" documentation that's currently in "beta". We need people, preferably people with no testing experience to look through that documentation to see generally a) does it make sense? b) does it answer all the questions I have about testing? c) are there parts where it's still ambiguous/unclear? That page is a wiki page, so feel free to go absolutely nuts with the +4 Machete of Merciless Editing in order to get things to the point where you understand them.

2. Since these new "beta" docs are intended to replace the docs at http://drupal.org/simpletest, which are hopelessly out of date, it'd also be helpful to have a list of what's covered in the incorrect docs that's currently not covered in the correct ones, and update http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 accordingly.

3. Once you feel http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 is looking pretty good, it's time for the ultimate challenge. Choose one of the following:

  • Attempt to write your first test for Drupal 7.x core*
  • Fix one of the existing tests that are currently broken
  • Or, if you don't feel you have the development chops yourself to pull this off (note: chances are you do :)), ask a developer in #drupal to walk through your docs and see if they can do either of the above.

There's a list of existing issues under the "tests" category, or you can use your imagination to come up with some particularly gnarly function that's given you grief in the past, a bug you've run into before you never want to again, or some long chain of form clicks you have to do to verify X functionality that isn't covered by the existing tests.

* I was hoping that this step could be "Write a test for ANY contributed module or core" but unfortunately the syntax for tests in 5.x/6.x and 7.x is different so until that issue is fixed, you have to stick to 7.x core for now. :(

3. Refine http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 as needed based on step 3.

4. Move http://groups.drupal.org/node/11020 to http://drupal.org/simpletest

5. Rejoice and have punch. Glorious, glorious punch.

Who's up for the challenge? ;) Ideally, this'd be a small team of people, not a single person, in order to make sure the docs are that much more kick-ass. I can't over-emphasize enough how important this is to the community.

📌 Task
Status

Closed: outdated

Component

Correction/Clarification

Created by

🇨🇦Canada webchick Vancouver 🇨🇦

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