Thanks for your comments.

The case when the code passed to verify dies should cause a failed test, rather than a printed error message.

Ah, good catch.

You don't need the "#" after the "ok" and "not out" outputs

I guess I misunderstood the directions, then. I thought it was for a comment after the formal part. So it just ignores everything after the /(not )?ok( \d+)/ and I can put my commentary right there, or after some other separator like a dash?

I would strongly consider using Test::More

After reading the articles on testing, I went to the docs on Test::More and it said

STOP! If you're just getting started writing tests, have a look at Test::Simple first. This is a drop in replacement for Test::Simple which you can switch to once you get the hang of basic testing.

I suppose I made it to that point, now?

Consider testing the environment variable TEST_VERBOSE

Good idea. I suppose that's what most people do, so they can just use n?make test and not have to run the script in another manner.

...to save having to alias verify into each module.

Ah! Since I need to qualify everything anyway (since it's eval'ed elsewhere), there is no point to having the code lexically in the scope of that module! I missed that, thanks to the organic nature of "growing" rather than planning the script.

—John