#1101: Test system output format should be extensible and easy to parse programmatically -------------------------+-------------------------------------------------- Reporter: hinder | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: major | Milestone: Component: Cactus | Version: Keywords: | -------------------------+-------------------------------------------------- The Cactus test system currently outputs a human-readable results file. It is necessary to write a simple parser for this file (e.g. in Perl or Awk) in each application that needs to understand the results. Because the output format is not extensible, it is difficult to add test-specific details in a way which does not break exising ad-hoc parsers. I propose that the test system should output its results in XML format in addition to the current format. This format is extensible and parsers exist for most languages.

I started to work on this a while ago, but have not had time to complete it. I attach a work-in-progress patch against revision 4874 of Cactus; I don't remember its status. It uses an imported Perl XML writer module (included in the patch) which seems to have a suitable licence. Since writing this, I have learned that test systems often write their output in a format compatible with the JUnit Java testing framework. As far as I can tell, this is not an officially defined format, but it is understood by many test systems (e.g. Jenkins, which I have been using recently). The code in the attached patch should be modified to output in this format.