Acceptance Tests: TestCases

Acceptance tests are expressed in terms of Test Cases, each using one or more Terraform configurations designed to create a set of resources under test, and then verify the actual infrastructure created. Terraform’s resource package offers a method Test(), accepting two parameters and acting as the entry point to Terraform’s acceptance test framework. The first parameter is the standard *testing.T struct from Golang’s Testing package, and the second is TestCase, a Go struct that developers use to setup the acceptance tests.

Here’s an example acceptance test. Here the Provider is named Example, and the Resource under test is Widget. The parts of this test are explained below the example.

package example

// example.Widget represents a concrete Go type that represents an API resource
func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  var widgetBefore, widgetAfter example.Widget
  rName := acctest.RandStringFromCharSet(10, acctest.CharSetAlphaNum)

    resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    PreCheck:     func() { testAccPreCheck(t) },
    Providers:    testAccProviders,
    CheckDestroy: testAccCheckExampleResourceDestroy,
    Steps: []resource.TestStep{
      {
        Config: testAccExampleResource(rName),
        Check: resource.ComposeTestCheckFunc(
          testAccCheckExampleResourceExists("example_widget.foo", &widgetBefore),
        ),
      },
      {
        Config: testAccExampleResource_removedPolicy(rName),
        Check: resource.ComposeTestCheckFunc(
          testAccCheckExampleResourceExists("example_widget.foo", &widgetAfter),
        ),
      },
    },
  })
}

Creating Acceptance Tests Functions

Terraform acceptance tests are declared with the naming pattern TestAccXxx and with the standard Go test function signature of func TestAccXxx(*testing.T). Using the above test as an example:

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  // ...
}

Inside this function we invoke resource.Test() with the *testing.T input and a new testcase object:

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    // ...
  })
}

The majority of acceptance tests will only invoke resource.Test() and exit. If at any point this method encounters an error, either in executing the provided Terraform configurations or subsequent developer defined checks, Test() will invoke the t.Error method of Go’s standard testing framework and the test will fail. A failed test will not halt or otherwise interrupt any other tests currently running.

TestCase Reference API

TestCase offers several fields for developers to add to customize and validate each test, defined below. The source for TestCase can be viewed here on godoc.org

IsUnitTest

Type: bool

Default: false

Required: no

IsUnitTest allows a test to run regardless of the TF_ACC environment variable. This should be used with care - only for fast tests on local resources (e.g. remote state with a local backend) but can be used to increase confidence in correct operation of Terraform without waiting for a full acceptance test run.

PreCheck

Type: function

Default: nil

Required: no

PreCheck if non-nil, will be called before any test steps are executed. It is commonly used to verify that required values exist for testing, such as environment variables containing test keys that are used to configure the Provider or Resource under test.

Example usage:

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    PreCheck:     func() { testAccPreCheck(t) },
    // ...
  })
}


// testAccPreCheck validates the necessary test API keys exist
// in the testing environment
func testAccPreCheck(t *testing.T) {
  if v := os.Getenv("EXAMPLE_KEY"); v == "" {
    t.Fatal("EXAMPLE_KEY must be set for acceptance tests")
  }
  if v := os.Getenv("EXAMPLE_SECRET"); v == "" {
    t.Fatal("EXAMPLE_SECRET must be set for acceptance tests")
  }
}

TerraformVersionChecks

Type: []tfversion.TerraformVersionCheck

Default: nil

Required: no

TerraformVersionChecks if non-nil, will be called after any defined PreChecks but before any test steps are executed. The Terraform Version Checks are generic checks that check logic against the Terraform CLI version and can immediately pass or fail a test before any test steps are executed.

The tfversion package provides built-in checks for common scenarios.

Example usage:

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    PreCheck:     func() { testAccPreCheck(t) },
    TerraformVersionChecks: []tfversion.TerraformVersionCheck{
        tfversion.SkipBelow(tfversion.Version1_1_0), // built-in check from tfversion package
    },
    // ...
  })
}

Providers

Type: map[string]*schema.Provider

Required: Yes

Providers is a map of *schema.Provider values with string keys, representing the Providers that will be under test. Only the Providers included in this map will be loaded during the test, so any Provider included in a configuration file for testing must be represented in this map or the test will fail during initialization.

This map is most commonly constructed once in a common init() method of the Provider’s main test file, and includes an object of the current Provider type.

Example usage: (note the different files widget_test.go and provider_test.go)

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    PreCheck:     func() { testAccPreCheck(t) },
    TerraformVersionChecks: []tfversion.TerraformVersionCheck{
        tfversion.SkipBelow(tfversion.Version1_1_0),
    },
    Providers:    testAccProviders,
    // ...
  })
}

// File: example/provider_test.go
package example

var testAccProviders map[string]*schema.Provider
var testAccProvider *schema.Provider

func init() {
  testAccProvider = Provider()
  testAccProviders = map[string]*schema.Provider{
    "example": testAccProvider,
  }
}

CheckDestroy

Type: TestCheckFunc

Default: nil

Required: no

CheckDestroy is called after all test steps have been run and Terraform has run destroy on the remaining state. This allows developers to ensure any resource created is truly destroyed. This method receives the last known Terraform state as input, and commonly uses infrastructure SDKs to query APIs directly to verify the expected objects are no longer found, and should return an error if any resources remain.

Example usage:

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    PreCheck:     func() { testAccPreCheck(t) },
    TerraformVersionChecks: []tfversion.TerraformVersionCheck{
        tfversion.SkipBelow(tfversion.Version1_1_0),
    },
    Providers:    testAccProviders,
    CheckDestroy: testAccCheckExampleResourceDestroy,
    // ...
  })
}

// testAccCheckExampleResourceDestroy verifies the Widget
// has been destroyed
func testAccCheckExampleResourceDestroy(s *terraform.State) error {
  // retrieve the connection established in Provider configuration
  conn := testAccProvider.Meta().(*ExampleClient)

  // loop through the resources in state, verifying each widget
  // is destroyed
  for _, rs := range s.RootModule().Resources {
    if rs.Type != "example_widget" {
      continue
    }

    // Retrieve our widget by referencing it's state ID for API lookup
    request := &example.DescribeWidgets{
      IDs: []string{rs.Primary.ID},
    }

    response, err := conn.DescribeWidgets(request)
    if err == nil {
      if len(response.Widgets) > 0 && *response.Widgets[0].ID == rs.Primary.ID {
        return fmt.Errorf("Widget (%s) still exists.", rs.Primary.ID)
      }

      return nil
    }

    // If the error is equivalent to 404 not found, the widget is destroyed.
    // Otherwise return the error
    if !strings.Contains(err.Error(), "Widget not found") {
      return err
    }
  }

  return nil
}

Steps

Type: []TestStep

Required: yes

TestStep is a single apply sequence of a test, done within the context of a state. Multiple TestSteps can be sequenced in a Test to allow testing potentially complex update logic and usage. Basic tests typically contain one to two steps, to verify the resource can be created and subsequently updated, depending on the properties of the resource. In general, simply create/destroy tests will only need one step.

TestSteps are covered in detail in the next section, TestSteps.

Example usage:

// File: example/widget_test.go
package example

func TestAccExampleWidget_basic(t *testing.T) {
  resource.Test(t, resource.TestCase{
    PreCheck:     func() { testAccPreCheck(t) },
    TerraformVersionChecks: []tfversion.TerraformVersionCheck{
        tfversion.SkipBelow(tfversion.Version1_1_0),
    },
    Providers:    testAccProviders,
    CheckDestroy: testAccCheckExampleResourceDestroy,
    Steps: []resource.TestStep{
      {
        Config: testAccExampleResource(rName),
        Check: resource.ComposeTestCheckFunc(
          testAccCheckExampleResourceExists("example_widget.foo", &widgetBefore),
        ),
      },
      {
        Config: testAccExampleResource_removedPolicy(rName),
        Check: resource.ComposeTestCheckFunc(
          testAccCheckExampleResourceExists("example_widget.foo", &widgetAfter),
        ),
      },
    },
  })
}

Next Steps

TestCases are used to verify the features of a given part of a plugin. Each case should represent a scenario of normal usage of the plugin, from simple creation to creating, adding, and removing specific properties. In the next Section TestSteps, we’ll detail Steps portion of TestCase and see how to create these scenarios by iterating on Terraform configurations.