Adding to an existing integration test

The test tasks are stored in the tests/integration/targets/<target_name>/tasks directory.

The main.yml file holds test tasks and includes other test files. Look for a suitable test file to integrate your tests or create and include or import a separate test file. You can use one of the existing test files as a draft.

When fixing a bug

When fixing a bug:

  1. Determine if integration tests for the module exist. If they do not, see Creating new integration tests section.

  2. Add a task that reproduces the bug to an appropriate file within the tests/integration/targets/<target_name>/tasks directory.

  3. Run the tests. The newly added task should fail.

  4. If they do not fail, re-check if your environment or test task satisfies the conditions described in the Steps to Reproduce section of the issue.

  5. If you reproduce the bug and tests fail, change the code.

  6. Run the tests again.

  7. If they fail, repeat steps 5-6 until the tests pass.

Here is an example.

Let’s say someone reported an issue in the community.postgresql collection that when users pass a name containing underscores to the postgresql_user module, the module fails.

We cloned the collection repository to the ~/ansible_collections/community/postgresql directory and prepared our environment. From the collection’s root directory, we run ansible-test integration --list-targets and it shows a target called postgresql_user. It means that we already have tests for the module.

We start with reproducing the bug.

First, we look into the tests/integration/targets/postgresql_user/tasks/main.yml file. In this particular case, the file imports other files from the tasks directory. The postgresql_user_general.yml looks like an appropriate one to add our tests.

# General tests:
- import_tasks: postgresql_user_general.yml
  when: postgres_version_resp.stdout is version('9.4', '>=')

We will add the following code to the file.

# https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.postgresql/issues/NUM
- name: Test user name containing underscore
  community.postgresql.postgresql_user:
    name: underscored_user
  register: result

- name: Check the module returns what we expect
  assert:
    that:
      - result is changed

- name: Query the database if the user exists
  community.postgresql.postgresql_query:
    query: SELECT * FROM pg_authid WHERE rolename = 'underscored_user'
  register: result

- name: Check the database returns one row
  assert:
    that:
      - result.query_result.rowcount == 1

When we run the tests with postgresql_user as a test target, this task must fail.

Now that we have our failing test; we will fix the bug and run the same tests again. Once the tests pass, we will consider the bug fixed and will submit a pull request.

When adding a new feature

Note

The process described in this section also applies when you want to add integration tests to a feature that already exists, but is missing integration tests.

If you have not already implemented the new feature, you can start by writing the integration tests for it. They will not work as the code does not yet exist, but they can help you improve your implementation design before you start writing any code.

When adding new features, the process of adding tests consists of the following steps:

  1. Determine if integration tests for the module exists. If they do not, see Creating new integration tests.

  2. Find an appropriate file for your tests within the tests/integration/targets/<target_name>/tasks directory.

  3. Cover your feature with tests. Refer to the Recommendations on coverage section for details.

  4. Run the tests.

  5. If they fail, see the test output for details. Fix your code or tests and run the tests again.

  6. Repeat steps 4-5 until the tests pass.

Here is an example.

Let’s say we decided to add a new option called add_attribute to the postgresql_user module of the community.postgresql collection.

The option is boolean. If set to yes, it adds an additional attribute to a database user.

We cloned the collection repository to the ~/ansible_collections/community/postgresql directory and prepared our environment. From the collection’s root directory, we run ansible-test integration --list-targets and it shows a target called postgresql_user. Therefore, we already have some tests for the module.

First, we look at the tests/integration/targets/<target_name>/tasks/main.yml file. In this particular case, the file imports other files from the tasks directory. The postgresql_user_general.yml file looks like an appropriate one to add our tests.

# General tests:
- import_tasks: postgresql_user_general.yml
  when: postgres_version_resp.stdout is version('9.4', '>=')

We will add the following code to the file.

# https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.postgresql/issues/NUM
# We should also run the same tasks with check_mode: true. We omit it here for simplicity.
- name: Test for new_option, create new user WITHOUT the attribute
  community.postgresql.postgresql_user:
    name: test_user
  register: result

- name: Check the module returns what we expect
  assert:
    that:
      - result is changed

- name: Query the database if the user exists but does not have the attribute (it is NULL)
  community.postgresql.postgresql_query:
    query: SELECT * FROM pg_authid WHERE rolename = 'test_user' AND attribute = NULL
  register: result

- name: Check the database returns one row
  assert:
    that:
      - result.query_result.rowcount == 1

- name: Test for new_option, create new user WITH the attribute
  community.postgresql.postgresql_user:
    name: test_user
  register: result

- name: Check the module returns what we expect
  assert:
    that:
      - result is changed

- name: Query the database if the user has the attribute (it is TRUE)
  community.postgresql.postgresql_query:
    query: SELECT * FROM pg_authid WHERE rolename = 'test_user' AND attribute = 't'
  register: result

- name: Check the database returns one row
  assert:
    that:
      - result.query_result.rowcount == 1

Then we run the tests with postgresql_user passed as a test target.

In reality, we would alternate the tasks above with the same tasks run with the check_mode: true option to be sure our option works as expected in check-mode as well. See Recommendations on coverage for details.

If we expect a task to fail, we use the ignore_errors: true option and check that the task actually failed and returned the message we expect:

- name: Test for fail_when_true option
  community.postgresql.postgresql_user:
    name: test_user
    fail_when_true: true
  register: result
  ignore_errors: true

- name: Check the module fails and returns message we expect
  assert:
    that:
      - result is failed
      - result.msg == 'The message we expect'