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.IX Title "App::Cmd::Tester 3"
.TH App::Cmd::Tester 3 2026-04-21 "perl v5.42.2" "User Contributed Perl Documentation"
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.SH SYNOPSIS
.IX Header "SYNOPSIS"
.Vb 2
\&  use Test::More tests => 4;
\&  use App::Cmd::Tester;
\&
\&  use YourApp;
\&
\&  my $result = test_app(YourApp => [ qw(command \-\-opt value) ]);
\&
\&  like($result\->stdout, qr/expected output/, \*(Aqprinted what we expected\*(Aq);
\&
\&  is($result\->stderr, \*(Aq\*(Aq, \*(Aqnothing sent to sderr\*(Aq);
\&
\&  is($result\->error, undef, \*(Aqthrew no exceptions\*(Aq);
\&
\&  my $result = test_app(YourApp => [ qw(command \-\-opt value \-\-quiet) ]);
\&
\&  is($result\->output, \*(Aq\*(Aq, \*(Aqabsolutely no output with \-\-quiet\*(Aq);
.Ve
.SH DESCRIPTION
.IX Header "DESCRIPTION"
One of the reasons that user\-executed programs are so often poorly tested is
that they are hard to test.  App::Cmd::Tester is one of the tools App\-Cmd
provides to help make it easy to test App::Cmd\-based programs.
.PP
It provides one routine: test_app.
.PP
\&\fBNote\fR: while \f(CW\*(C`test_app\*(C'\fR is a method, it is by default exported as a
subroutine into the namespace that uses App::Cmd::Tester.  In other words: you
probably don\*(Aqt need to think about this as a method unless you want to subclass
App::Cmd::Tester.
.PP
.Vb 1
\&  my $result = test_app($app_class => \e@argv_contents);
.Ve
.PP
This will locally set \f(CW@ARGV\fR to simulate command line arguments, and will
then call the \f(CW\*(C`run\*(C'\fR method on the given application class (or application).
Output to the standard output and standard error filehandles  will be captured.
.PP
\&\f(CW$result\fR is an App::Cmd::Tester::Result object, which has methods to access
the following data:
.PP
.Vb 6
\&  stdout \- the output sent to stdout
\&  stderr \- the output sent to stderr
\&  output \- the combined output of stdout and stderr
\&  error  \- the exception thrown by running the application, or undef
\&  run_rv \- the return value of the run method (generally irrelevant)
\&  exit_code \- the numeric exit code that would\*(Aqve been issued (0 is \*(Aqokay\*(Aq)
.Ve
.PP
The output is captured using IO::TieCombine, which \fIcan\fR ensure that the
ordering is preserved in the combined output, but \fIcan\*(Aqt\fR capture the output
of external programs.  You can reverse these tradeoffs by using
App::Cmd::Tester::CaptureExternal instead.
.SH "POD ERRORS"
.IX Header "POD ERRORS"
Hey! \fBThe above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:\fR
.IP "Around line 34:" 4
.IX Item "Around line 34:"
Unknown directive: =method