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<chapter>
<header>
<copyright>
<year>2007</year><year>2013</year>
<holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>
The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
compliance with the License. You should have received a copy of the
Erlang Public License along with this software. If not, it can be
retrieved online at http://www.erlang.org/.
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS"
basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations
under the License.
</legalnotice>
<title>Installation</title>
<prepared>Peter Andersson</prepared>
<docno></docno>
<date>2007-07-03</date>
<rev></rev>
<file>install_chapter.xml</file>
</header>
<section>
<marker id="general"></marker>
<title>General information</title>
<p>The two main interfaces for running tests with Common Test
are an executable program named ct_run and an
erlang module named <c>ct</c>. The ct_run program
is compiled for the underlying operating system (e.g. Unix/Linux
or Windows) during the build of the Erlang/OTP system, and is
installed automatically with other executable programs in
the top level <c>bin</c> directory of Erlang/OTP.
The <c>ct</c> interface functions can be called from the Erlang shell,
or from any Erlang function, on any supported platform.</p>
<p>A legacy Bourne shell script - named run_test - exists,
which may be manually generated and installed. This script may be used
instead of the ct_run program mentioned above, e.g. if the user
wishes to modify or customize the Common Test start flags in a simpler
way than making changes to the ct_run C program.</p>
<p>The Common Test application is installed with the Erlang/OTP
system and no additional installation step is required to start using
Common Test by means of the ct_run executable program, and/or the interface
functions in the <c>ct</c> module. If you wish to use the legacy Bourne
shell script version run_test, however, this script needs to be
generated first, according to the instructions below.</p>
<note><p>Before reading on, please note that since Common Test version
1.5, the run_test shell script is no longer required for starting
tests with Common Test from the OS command line. The ct_run
program (descibed above) is the new recommended command line interface
for Common Test. The shell script exists mainly for legacy reasons and
may not be updated in future releases of Common Test. It may even be removed.
</p></note>
<p>Optional step to generate a shell script for starting Common Test:</p>
<p>To generate the run_test shell script, navigate to the
<c><![CDATA[common_test-<vsn>]]></c> directory, located among the other
OTP applications (under the OTP lib directory). Here execute the
<c>install.sh</c> script with argument <c>local</c>:</p>
<p><c>
$ ./install.sh local
</c></p>
<p>This generates the executable run_test script in the
<c><![CDATA[common_test-<vsn>/priv/bin]]></c> directory. The script
will include absolute paths to the Common Test and Test Server
application directories, so it's possible to copy or move the script to
a different location on the file system, if desired, without having to
update it. It's of course possible to leave the script under the
<c>priv/bin</c> directory and update the PATH variable accordingly (or
create a link or alias to it).</p>
<p>If you, for any reason, have copied Common Test and Test Server
to a different location than the default OTP lib directory, you can
generate a run_test script with a different top level directory,
simply by specifying the directory, instead of <c>local</c>, when running
<c>install.sh</c>. Example:</p>
<p><c>
$ install.sh /usr/local/test_tools
</c></p>
<p>Note that the <c><![CDATA[common_test-<vsn>]]></c> and
<c><![CDATA[test_server-<vsn>]]></c> directories must be located under the
same top directory. Note also that the install script does not copy files
or update environment variables. It only generates the run_test
script.</p>
<p>Whenever you install a new version of Erlang/OTP, the run_test
script needs to be regenerated, or updated manually with new directory names
(new version numbers), for it to "see" the latest Common Test and Test Server
versions.</p>
</section>
</chapter>
