32.4. TAP Tests
Various tests, particularly the client program tests undersrc/bin, use the Perl TAP tools and are run using the Perl testing programprove. You can pass command-line options toprove by setting themake variablePROVE_FLAGS, for example:
make -C src/bin check PROVE_FLAGS='--timer'
See the manual page ofprove for more information.
Themake variablePROVE_TESTS can be used to define a whitespace-separated list of paths relative to theMakefile invokingprove to run the specified subset of tests instead of the defaultt/*.pl. For example:
make check PROVE_TESTS='t/001_test1.pl t/003_test3.pl'
The TAP tests require the Perl moduleIPC::Run. This module is available from CPAN or an operating system package. They also requirePostgreSQL to be configured with the option--enable-tap-tests.
Generically speaking, the TAP tests will test the executables in a previously-installed installation tree if you saymake installcheck, or will build a new local installation tree from current sources if you saymake check. In either case they will initialize a local instance (data directory) and transiently run a server in it. Some of these tests run more than one server. Thus, these tests can be fairly resource-intensive.
It's important to realize that the TAP tests will start test server(s) even when you saymake installcheck; this is unlike the traditional non-TAP testing infrastructure, which expects to use an already-running test server in that case. Some PostgreSQL subdirectories contain both traditional-style and TAP-style tests, meaning thatmake installcheck will produce a mix of results from temporary servers and the already-running test server.