Subunit is a streaming protocol for test results. The protocol is a
binary encoding that is easily generated and parsed. By design all the
components of the protocol conceptually fit into the xUnit TestCase ->
TestResult interaction.
Subunit comes with command line filters to process a subunit stream and
language bindings for python, C, C++ and shell. Bindings are easy to
write for other languages.
A number of useful things can be done easily with subunit:
- Test aggregation: Tests run separately can be combined and then
reported/displayed together. For instance, tests from different
languages can be shown as a seamless whole.
- Test archiving: A test run may be recorded and replayed later.
- Test isolation: Tests that may crash or otherwise interact badly with
each other can be run separately and then aggregated, rather than
interfering with each other.
- Grid testing: subunit can act as the necessary serialization and
deserialization to get test runs on distributed machines to be
reported in real time.
