> dzil

Testing Your Distribution

Dist::Zilla saves you from wasting a lot of time on things like boilerplate documentation and bumping version numbers. You can take that free time and channel it into writing better tests, right? Right! Of course, with tests written, you'll want to be able to run them.

Using prove to run tests

No matter what configuration you're using, testing a distribution will usually be possible with the very simple shell command:

  $ prove -lr t

This uses the prove program to run the test files under ./t using the libraries in ./lib. Dist::Zilla won't be involved, so it can run very quickly. There are a few things to keep in mind, though:

• If your $VERSION variables come from Dist::Zilla, they won't be present.

• If Dist::Zilla constructs files needed for your tests, they won't be there.

• If your dist uses XS, this pretty much won't work.

Using dzil test to run tests

If your dist needs to be built for your tests to run, or if you just want to make sure your tests still run with the built version of your dist, you can run another simple command:

  $ dzil test

This will build your distribution and run its tests in the build directory. It should be exactly the same as what an installing user would be trying to do. If all the tests pass, the build directory will be deleted afterward. If tests fail, it will be left in place so you can inspect the wreckage.

Running your tests before releasing

You should run your tests immediately before you release your code, to be sure that the thing you're about to upload is working. You can tell Dist::Zilla to run your tests as part of the release process, aborting the release if they fail, but continuing on if they're all successful.