Understanding the Test module's "ok" subroutine

esharris has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Why am I getting inconsistent results from "ok"? I have a perl script (which I use in a make test), where ok('','') fails. And if one of the arguments is the number 5, I get the following warning. "You named your test '5'. You shouldn't use numbers for your test names." This is my understanding of "ok". The ok routine accepts two arguments: the result from the current test and the expected result. An ok message is printed if the two arguments are equal; a not ok message is printed if they are different. So, I expected the ok call to succeed. I used h2xs to build the Perl extension skeleton. The resulting files are backward compatible with 5.8.3.

Comment on Understanding the Test module's "ok" subroutine

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Re: Understanding h2xs's "ok" subroutine by Ven'Tatsu (Deacon) on Sep 10, 2004 at 16:18 UTC
Which testing module is being used? `Test` behave the way you are expecting, but `Test::More` and `Test::Simple` expect the first argument to be either true or false and the second (optional) argument to be a name for the test. My guess is that h2xs has the test harness using `Test::More`.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Understanding h2xs's "ok" subroutine by esharris (Monk) on Sep 10, 2004 at 17:36 UTC
You're right! I had an old h2xs that "use Test". The current h2xs "use Test::More". That's a gotcha. Thanks Again, Earl	[reply]
Re: Understanding the Test module's "ok" subroutine by petdance (Parson) on Sep 10, 2004 at 19:29 UTC
First, don't use Test. Use Test::More. Test's ok() function is horrifyingly bad. ok($x) means "Make sure $x is true" ok($x,$y) means "Make sure $x is equal to $y" ok($x,/$z/) means "Make sure $x matches /$z/" This means that you can NOT just change "use Test" to "use Test::More". Second, don't use h2xs any more. Use Module::Starter. xoxo, Andy	[reply]