TOPIC

Pester

SYNOPSIS
Pester is a BDD based test runner for PowerShell.

DESCRIPTION
Pester provides a framework for running Unit Tests to execute and validate
PowerShell commands. Pester follows a file naming convention for naming
tests to be discovered by pester at test time and a simple set of
functions that expose a Testing DSL for isolating, running, evaluating and
reporting the results of PowerShell commands.

Pester tests can execute any command or script that is accessible to a

pester test file. This can include functions, cmdlets, modules and scripts.
Pester can be run in ad hoc style in a console or it can be integrated into
the Build scripts of a Continuous Integration system.

Pester also contains a powerful set of Mocking Functions that allow tests to
mimic and mock the functionality of any command inside of a piece of
PowerShell code being tested. See about_Mocking.

CREATING A PESTER TEST

To start using Pester, you may use the New-Fixture function to scaffold both
a new implementation function and a test function.

C:\PS>New-Fixture deploy Clean

Creates two files:

./deploy/Clean.ps1
function clean {

./deploy/clean.Tests.ps1
$here = Split-Path -Parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path
$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path) -replace '\.Tests\.',
'.'
. "$here\$sut"

Describe "clean" {

It "does something useful" {

$true | should be $false
}
}

Now you have a skeleton of a clean function with a failing test. Pester
considers all files containing *Tests.ps1 to be a test file (see
Invoke-Pester) and by default it will look for these files and run all
Describe blocks inside the file (See Describe). The Describe block can
contain several behavior validations expressed in It blocks (see It).
Each It block should test one thing and throw an exception if the test
fails. Pester will consider any It block that throws an exception to be a
failed test. Pester provides a set of extensions that can perform various
comparisons between the values emitted or altered by a test and an expected
value (see about_Should).

RUNNNING A PESTER TEST

 Once you have some logic that you are ready to test, run the Tests file
directly,
usually by pressing F5 in your ISE.

To run multiple test files, get summary for the test run, to get nUnit
compatible XML
report or to get PesterResult object use the Invoke-Pester command. You can
zero in on
just one test (Describe block) or an entire tree of directories.

function BuildIfChanged {
$thisVersion=Get-Version
$nextVersion=Get-NextVersion
if($thisVersion -ne $nextVersion) {Build $nextVersion}
return $nextVersion
}

$here = Split-Path -Parent $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path

$sut = (Split-Path -Leaf $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path) -replace '\.Tests\.',
'.'
. "$here\$sut"

Describe "BuildIfChanged" {
Context "When there are Changes" {
Mock Get-Version {return 1.1}
Mock Get-NextVersion {return 1.2}
Mock Build {} -Verifiable -ParameterFilter {$version -eq 1.2}

$result = BuildIfChanged

It "Builds the next version" {

Assert-VerifiableMocks
}
It "returns the next version number" {
$result | Should Be 1.2
}
}
Context "When there are no Changes" {
Mock Get-Version -MockWith {return 1.1}
Mock Get-NextVersion -MockWith {return 1.1}
Mock Build {}

$result = BuildIfChanged

It "Should not build the next version" {

Assert-MockCalled Build -Times 0 -ParameterFilter{$version -eq
1.1}
}
}
}

C:\PS>Invoke-Pester

This will run all tests recursively from the current directory downwards
and print a report of all failing and passing tests to the console.

PESTER AND CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION

Pester integrates well with almost any build automation solution. You
could create a MSBuild target that calls Pester's convenience Batch file:
 <Target Name="Tests">
<Exec Command="cmd /c $(baseDir)pester\bin\pester.bat" />
</Target>

This will start a PowerShell session, import the Pester Module and call
invoke pester within the current directory. If any test fails, it will
return an exit code equal to the number of failed tests and all test
results will be saved to Test.xml using NUnit's Schema allowing you to
plug these results nicely into most Build systems like CruiseControl,
TeamCity, TFS or Jenkins.

OTHER EXAMPLES
Pester's own tests. See all files in the Pester Functions folder
containing *Tests.ps1

Chocolatey tests. Chocolatey is a popular PowerShell based Windows

package management system. It uses Pester tests to validate its own
functionality.

SEE ALSO
about_Mocking
Describe
Context
It
New-Fixture
Invoke-Pester
about_Should
about_TestDrive