On 2005-02-20, Steffen Schwigon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:General testing question: Is it ok for a CPAN module to use other modules from CPAN only for the test scripts (e.g. "Text::Diff")?
Yes. Just declare them as dependencies.
First, I'm not sure about the usage policy. Maybe it's more common to write tests more "low level".
Why would you write your own buggy code to do complex things in your tests, when someone else has already written it and released it on the CPAN with tests? The less code you write, the better.
If you are considered about the extra module requirement for your users, one option is to distribute the testing modules you want in your own distribution, in a private 'inc' directory that doesn't get installed.
The practice of bundling third-party modules with yours is IMO very wrong indeed. If I bundle (eg) Test::Frobnitz, and a hundred other people bundle Test::Frobnitz, then this leads to two problems:
1. when the author of Test::Frobnitz finds a bug in his code those hundred other distributions are still buggy; 2. if a user wants to look at Test::Frobnitz on search.cpan.org it's hard to find amongst the noise of old versions in other distributions
Personally, I would probably just the list the module as a dependency, because that's easy for me.
Not only easier for you, better for your users.
-- David Cantrell
