en-US/about_Pester.help.txt

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 accesible 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 Add-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 emited 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
    Add-Fixture
    Invoke-Pester
    about_Should
    about_TestDrive