test

The test stanza is the singular form of tests. The only difference is that it’s of the form:

(test
 (name foo)
 <optional fields>)

The name field is singular, and the same optional fields are supported.

tests

The tests stanza allows one to easily define multiple tests. For example, we can define two tests at once with:

(tests
 (names mytest expect_test)
 <optional fields>)

This defines an executable named mytest.exe that will be executed as part of the runtest alias. If the directory also contains an expect_test.expected file, then expect_test will be used to define an expect test. That is, the test will be executed and its output will be compared to expect_test.expected.

The optional fields supported are a subset of the alias and executables fields. In particular, all fields except for public_names are supported from the executables stanza. Alias fields apart from name are allowed.

The (enabled_if) field has special semantics: when present, it only applies to running the tests. The test executable is always built by default. If you need to restrict building the test executable, use (build_if) instead.

By default, the test binaries are run without options. The action field can override the test binary invocation, i.e., if you’re using Alcotest and wish to see all the test failures on the standard output. When running Dune runtest you can use the following stanza:

(tests
 (names mytest)
 (libraries alcotest mylib)
 (action (run %{test} -e)))

Starting from Dune 2.9, it’s possible to automatically generate empty interface files for test executables. See executables_implicit_empty_intf.