Spex

A quick and dirty harness for running system state checks before and after an executable is run.

It can be used:

When developing an executable/configuration, to check real-world results.
In production, to ensure the system is in a known state before an executable is run.
In production, to provide independent logging/reporting of executable status.

Synopsis

Spex is a simple language used to define scenarios that model the correct behavior of an executable.

The description file consists of exactly one command line and any number of scenario definitions; for example, the following file can be used to verify running touch /tmp/foo will create a new file:

scenario "Creates a file" do
  executing 'touch /tmp/foo' do
    check '/tmp/foo', :created => true
  end
end

If this was in run_touch.rb, you could run this with spex:

$ spex run_touch.rb

You'll notice that this should pass the first time and fail on subsequent invocations -- because the check added by :created => true fails in the event a file exists before the command is run.

If you want to see what command and scenarios are defined in a file, use spex info, eg:

$ spex --describe run_touch.rb

Usage help

See the commandline help documentation:

$ spex --help

Examples

See the examples/ directory.

Checks

You can see the checks that are available with the following command:

$ spex --checks

To add an check, create a class that inherits from Spex::Check and implements all the neccessary methods. See Spex::Check and the currently defined checks for examples.

Note: If you put your checks in ~/.spex/checks/*.rb, they'll automatically be loaded. If you create any interesting checks, add them to the wiki!

Other Resources

For more information, see the wiki.