I've written some simple tests with Test::WWW::Mechanize that check a Web site behaves as it should.

I am running these tests within cron, which sends me messages that look like: 

1..8
ok 1 - The object isa Test::WWW::Mechanize
ok 2 - Mech object created
ok 3 - Submit bad password isa HTTP::Response
ok 4 - Correct password welcomes us
ok 5 - Bad password notified as a failed login
ok 6 - Submit correct username and password isa HTTP::Response
ok 7 - Correct password welcomes us
ok 8 - Correct password not a failed login

[download]

If I alter cron to run the test script through prove I get briefer output: 

test-dedicated....ok
All tests successful.
Files=1, Tests=8,  2 wallclock secs ( 0.16 cusr +  0.36 csys =  0.52 C
+PU)

[download]

Ideally, I would like cron to only send mail if any tests fail. I could write a wrapper script to deal with this, but I wonder if you can think of a neater way?

I also wonder if I can easily report when the script didn't run at all. In this case, no tests will fail, but I still care about what happened.

Over time, I expect to add more tests in different scripts. For a collection of tests, does it make sense to write a Makefile.PL or can I get away with something like prove /path/to/*.t?

I'm looking for a clean and simple approach. Tools like Nagios look helpful, but seem like overkill for this problem to me. Any thoughts?

In reply to Reporting test failures within cron by tomhukins

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