2.1 Running ’make check’

To run tests from an existing collection, first use configure as usual to set up the build directory. Then type make check. If the check target exists, it usually saves you some trouble. For instance, it can set up any auxiliary programs or other files needed by the tests. The most common file the check target depends on is the site.exp file. The site.exp contains various variables that DejaGnu uses to determine the configuration of the program being tested.

Once you have run make check to build any auxiliary files, you can invoke the test driver runtest directly to repeat the tests. You will also have to execute runtest directly for test collections with no check target in the Makefile.

GNU Automake has built-in support for DejaGnu. To add DejaGnu support to your generated Makefile.in, just add the keyword dejagnu to the AUTOMAKE_OPTIONS variable in Makefile.am. This will ensure that the generated Makefile.in has a check target that invokes DejaGnu correctly.