Perl's prove is a tool for customizing automatic tests and summarizing the results.
Perl's prove tool is a perl script for customizing automatic tests and summarizing the results. Because it is part of the Module Test::Harness, itself a perl core module, users will find prove pre-installed in the .../perl/bin directory.
Its documentation can be invoked from the command line with
prove --man
Output:
prove - Run tests through a TAP harness.
USAGE
prove [options] [files or directories]
OPTIONS ...
For detailed information on its many options, see the online documentation at https://metacpan.org/module/prove.
For a short listing of the options, type
prove --help
A more fundamental introduction, written by prove's author is available here:
https://metacpan.org/module/ANDYA/Test-Harness-3.23/lib/TAP/Harness/Beyond.pod:
[Slightly edited]
Beyond make test
Test::Harness is responsible for running test scripts, analysing their output and reporting success or failure. When I type make test (or ./Build test) for a module, Test::Harness is usually used to run the tests (not all modules use Test::Harness but the majority do).
To start exploring some of the features of Test::Harness I need to switch from make test to the prove command (which ships with Test::Harness). [...]
[L]ike make test, [prove] runs a test suite - but it provides far more control over which tests are executed, in what order and how their results are reported. ...