Web tests are used by Blink to test many components, including but not
limited to layout and rendering. In general, web tests involve loading pages
in a test renderer (content_shell
) and comparing the rendered output or
JavaScript output against an expected output file.
This document covers running and debugging existing web tests. See the Writing Web Tests documentation if you find yourself writing web tests.
Note that we changed the term "layout tests" to "web tests". Please assume these terms mean the identical stuff. We also call it as "WebKit tests" and "WebKit layout tests".
"Web platform tests" (WPT) are the preferred form of web tests and are located at web_tests/external/wpt. Tests that should work across browsers go there. Other directories are for Chrome-specific tests only.
Note: if you are looking for a guide for the Web Platform Test, you should read "Web platform tests" (WPT). This document does not cover WPT specific features/behaviors.
Note: if you are looking for a guide for running the Web Platform Tests with Chrome, Chrome Android or WebView, you should read "Running Web Platform Tests with run_wpt_tests.py".
[TOC]
- Linux
- MacOS
- Windows
- Fuchsia
Android is not supported.
Before you can run the web tests, you need to build the blink_tests
target
to get content_shell
and all of the other needed binaries.
autoninja -C out/Default blink_tests
On Mac, you probably want to strip the content_shell binary before starting the tests. If you don't, you'll have 5-10 running concurrently, all stuck being examined by the OS crash reporter. This may cause other failures like timeouts where they normally don't occur.
strip ./out/Default/Content\ Shell.app/Contents/MacOS/Content\ Shell
The test runner script is in third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py
.
To specify which build directory to use (e.g. out/Default, etc.)
you should pass the -t
or --target
parameter. If no directory is specified,
out/Release
will be used. To use the built-in out/Default
, use:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py -t Default
*** promo
- Windows users need to use
third_party\blink\tools\run_web_tests.bat
instead. - Linux users should not use
testing/xvfb.py
;run_web_tests.py
manages Xvfb itself.
Tests marked as [ Skip ]
in
TestExpectations
won't be run by default, generally because they cause some intractable tool error.
To force one of them to be run, either rename that file or specify the skipped
test on the command line (see below) or in a file specified with --test-list
(however, --skip=always can make the tests marked as [ Skip ]
always skipped).
Read the Web Test Expectations documentation to
learn more about TestExpectations and related files.
*** promo Currently only the tests listed in Default.txt are run on the Fuchsia bots, since running all web tests takes too long on Fuchshia. Most developers focus their Blink testing on Linux. We rely on the fact that the Linux and Fuchsia behavior is nearly identical for scenarios outside those covered by the smoke tests.
*** promo Similar to Fuchsia's case, the tests listed in [Mac.txt] (../../third_party/blink/web_tests/TestLists/Mac.txt) are run on older mac version bots. By doing this we reduced the resources needed to run the tests. This relies on the fact that the majority of web tests will behavior similarly on different mac versions.
To run only some of the tests, specify their directories or filenames as
arguments to run_web_tests.py
relative to the web test directory
(src/third_party/blink/web_tests
). For example, to run the fast form tests,
use:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py fast/forms
Or you could use the following shorthand:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py fast/fo\*
*** promo
Example: To run the web tests with a debug build of content_shell
, but only
test the SVG tests and run pixel tests, you would run:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py -t Default svg
As a final quick-but-less-robust alternative, you can also just use the content_shell executable to run specific tests by using (example on Windows):
out\Default\content_shell.exe --run-web-tests <url>|<full_test_source_path>|<relative_test_path>
as in:
out\Default\content_shell.exe --run-web-tests \
c:\chrome\src\third_party\blink\web_tests\fast\forms\001.html
or
out\Default\content_shell.exe --run-web-tests fast\forms\001.html
but this requires a manual diff against expected results, because the shell
doesn't do it for you. It also just dumps the text result only (as the dump of
pixels and audio binary data is not human readable).
See Running Web Tests Using the Content Shell
for more details of running content_shell
.
To see a complete list of arguments supported, run:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py --help
*** note Linux Note: We try to match the Windows render tree output exactly by matching font metrics and widget metrics. If there's a difference in the render tree output, we should see if we can avoid rebaselining by improving our font metrics. For additional information on Linux web tests, please see docs/web_tests_linux.md.
*** note Mac Note: While the tests are running, a bunch of Appearance settings are overridden for you so the right type of scroll bars, colors, etc. are used. Your main display's "Color Profile" is also changed to make sure color correction by ColorSync matches what is expected in the pixel tests. The change is noticeable, how much depends on the normal level of correction for your display. The tests do their best to restore your setting when done, but if you're left in the wrong state, you can manually reset it by going to System Preferences → Displays → Color and selecting the "right" value.
This script has a lot of command line flags. You can pass --help
to the script
to see a full list of options. A few of the most useful options are below:
Option | Meaning |
---|---|
--debug |
Run the debug build of the test shell (default is release). Equivalent to -t Debug |
--nocheck-sys-deps |
Don't check system dependencies; this allows faster iteration. |
--verbose |
Produce more verbose output, including a list of tests that pass. |
--reset-results |
Overwrite the current baselines (-expected.{png |txt |wav} files) with actual results, or create new baselines if there are no existing baselines. |
--fully-parallel |
Run tests in parallel using as many child processes as the system has cores. |
--driver-logging |
Print C++ logs (LOG(WARNING), etc). |
A test succeeds when its output matches the pre-defined expected results. If any
tests fail, the test script will place the actual generated results, along with
a diff of the actual and expected results, into
src/out/Default/layout-test-results/
, and by default launch a browser with a
summary and link to the results/diffs.
The expected results for tests are in the
src/third_party/blink/web_tests/platform
or alongside their respective
tests.
*** note Tests which use testharness.js do not have expected result files if all test cases pass.
A test that runs but produces the wrong output is marked as "failed", one that causes the test shell to crash is marked as "crashed", and one that takes longer than a certain amount of time to complete is aborted and marked as "timed out". A row of dots in the script's output indicates one or more tests that passed.
The TestExpectations file (and related files) contains the list of all known web test failures. See the Web Test Expectations documentation for more on this.
There are two ways to run web tests with additional command-line arguments:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py --flag-specific=blocking-repaint
It requires that web_tests/FlagSpecificConfig
contains an entry like:
{
"name": "blocking-repaint",
"args": ["--blocking-repaint", "--another-flag"]
}
This tells the test harness to pass --blocking-repaint --another-flag
to the
content_shell binary.
It will also look for flag-specific expectations in
web_tests/FlagExpectations/blocking-repaint
, if this file exists. The
suppressions in this file override the main TestExpectations files.
However, [ Slow ]
in either flag-specific expectations or base expectations
is always merged into the used expectations.
It will also look for baselines in web_tests/flag-specific/blocking-repaint
.
The baselines in this directory override the fallback baselines.
*** note BUILD.gn assumes flag-specific builders always runs on linux bots, so flag-specific test expectations and baselines are only downloaded to linux bots. If you need run flag-specific builders on other platforms, please update BUILD.gn to download flag-specific related data to that platform.
You can also use --additional-driver-flag
to specify additional command-line
arguments to content_shell, but the test harness won't use any flag-specific
test expectations or baselines.
A virtual test suite can be defined in
web_tests/VirtualTestSuites,
to run a subset of web tests with additional flags, with
virtual/<prefix>/...
in their paths. The tests can be virtual tests that
map to real base tests (directories or files) whose paths match any of the
specified bases, or any real tests under web_tests/virtual/<prefix>/
directory. For example, you could test a (hypothetical) new mode for
repainting using the following virtual test suite:
{
"prefix": "blocking_repaint",
"platforms": ["Linux", "Mac", "Win"],
"bases": ["compositing", "fast/repaint"],
"args": ["--blocking-repaint"]
}
This will create new "virtual" tests of the form
virtual/blocking_repaint/compositing/...
and
virtual/blocking_repaint/fast/repaint/...
which correspond to the files
under web_tests/compositing
and web_tests/fast/repaint
, respectively,
and pass --blocking-repaint
to content_shell
when they are run.
Note that you can run the tests with the following command line:
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py virtual/blocking_repaint/compositing \
virtual/blocking_repaint/fast/repaint
These virtual tests exist in addition to the original compositing/...
and
fast/repaint/...
tests. They can have their own expectations in
web_tests/TestExpectations
, and their own baselines. The test harness will
use the non-virtual expectations and baselines as a fallback. If a virtual
test has its own expectations, they will override all non-virtual
expectations. Otherwise the non-virtual expectations will be used. However,
[ Slow ]
in either virtual or non-virtual expectations is always merged
into the used expectations. If a virtual test is expected to pass while the
non-virtual test is expected to fail, you need to add an explicit [ Pass ]
entry for the virtual test.
This will also let any real tests under web_tests/virtual/blocking_repaint
directory run with the --blocking-repaint
flag.
The "platforms" configuration can be used to skip tests on some platforms. If a virtual test suites uses more than 5% of total test time, we should consider to skip the test suites on some platforms.
The "prefix" value should be unique. Multiple directories with the same flags
should be listed in the same "bases" list. The "bases" list can be empty,
in case that we just want to run the real tests under virtual/<prefix>
with the flags without creating any virtual tests.
A virtual test suite can have an optional exclusive_tests
field to specify
all (with "ALL"
) or a subset of bases
tests that will be exclusively run
under this virtual suite. The specified base tests will be skipped. Corresponding
virtual tests under other virtual suites that don't specify the tests in their
exclusive_tests
list will be skipped, too. For example (unrelated fields
are omitted):
{
"prefix": "v1",
"bases": ["a"],
}
{
"prefix": "v2",
"bases": ["a/a1", "a/a2"],
"exclusive_tests": "ALL",
}
{
"prefix": "v3",
"bases": ["a"],
"exclusive_tests": ["a/a1"],
}
Suppose there are directories a/a1
, a/a2
and a/a3
, we will run the
following tests:
Suite | a/a1 | a/a2 | a/a3 |
---|---|---|---|
base | skipped | skipped | run |
virtual/v1 | skipped | skipped | run |
virtual/v2 | run | run | n/a |
virtual/v3 | run | skipped | run |
In a similar manner, a virtual test suite can also have an optional
skip_base_tests
field to specify all (with "ALL"
) or a subset of bases
tests that will be run under this virtual while the base tests will be skipped.
This will not affect other virtual suites.
{
"prefix": "v1",
"bases": ["a/a1"],
}
{
"prefix": "v2",
"bases": ["a/a1"],
"skip_base_tests": "ALL",
}
Suppose there are directories a/a1
and a/a2
we will run the following tests:
Suite | a/a1 | a/a2 |
---|---|---|
base | skipped | run |
virtual/v1 | run | n/a |
virtual/v2 | run | n/a |
For flags whose implementation is still in progress, flag-specific expectations
and virtual test suites represent two alternative strategies for testing both
the enabled code path and non-enabled code path. They are preferred to only
setting a runtime enabled feature
to status: "test"
if the feature has substantially different code path from
production because the latter would cause loss of test coverage of the production
code path.
Consider the following when choosing between virtual test suites and flag-specific suites:
-
The waterfall builders and try bots will run all virtual test suites in addition to the non-virtual tests. Conversely, a flag-specific configuration won't automatically cause the bots to test your flag - if you want bot coverage without virtual test suites, you will need to follow these instructions.
-
Due to the above, virtual test suites incur a performance penalty for the commit queue and the continuous build infrastructure. This is exacerbated by the need to restart
content_shell
whenever flags change, which limits parallelism. Therefore, you should avoid adding large numbers of virtual test suites. They are well suited to running a subset of tests that are directly related to the feature, but they don't scale to flags that make deep architectural changes that potentially impact all of the tests. -
Note that using wildcards in virtual test path names (e.g.
virtual/blocking_repaint/fast/repaint/*
) is not supported inrun_web_tests.py
command line , but you can still usevirtual/blocking_repaint
to run all real and virtual tests in the suite orvirtual/blocking_repaint/fast/repaint/dir
to run real or virtual tests in the suite under a specific directory.
*** note We can run a virtual test with additional flags. Both the virtual args and the additional flags will be applied. The fallback order of baselines and expectations will be: 1) flag-specific virtual, 2) non-flag-specific virtual, 3) flag-specific base, 4) non-flag-specific base
Assuming you have already created a FlagSpecificConfig
entry:
- File a resource request (internal
docs)
for increased capacity in the
chromium.tests
swarming pool and wait for approval. - Define a new dedicated
Buildbot test suite
with
--flag-specific
and possibly other special configurations (e.g., fewer shards). - Add the Buildbot suite to the relevant
*-blink-rel
builder's composition suite first (example). - Add the flag-specific step name to the relevant builder in
builders.json
.rebaseline-cl
and the WPT importer will now create baselines for that suite. - Rebaseline the new suite and add any necessary suppressions under
FlagExpectations/
. - Enable the flag-specific suite for CQ/CI by adding the Buildbot suite to the
desired builder.
This could be an existing CQ builder like
linux-rel
or a dedicated builder likelinux-blink-web-tests-force-accessibility-rel
, which has customized location filters.
All bugs, associated with web test failures must have the Test-Layout label. Depending on how much you know about the bug, assign the status accordingly:
- Unconfirmed -- You aren't sure if this is a simple rebaseline, possible duplicate of an existing bug, or a real failure
- Untriaged -- Confirmed but unsure of priority or root cause.
- Available -- You know the root cause of the issue.
- Assigned or Started -- You will fix this issue.
When creating a new web test bug, please set the following properties:
- Components: a sub-component of Blink
- OS: All (or whichever OS the failure is on)
- Priority: 2 (1 if it's a crash)
- Type: Bug
- Labels: Test-Layout
You can also use the Layout Test Failure template, which pre-sets these labels for you.
After the web tests run, you should get a summary of tests that pass or
fail. If something fails unexpectedly (a new regression), you will get a
content_shell
window with a summary of the unexpected failures. Or you might
have a failing test in mind to investigate. In any case, here are some steps and
tips for finding the problem.
- Take a look at the result. Sometimes tests just need to be rebaselined (see
below) to account for changes introduced in your patch.
- Load the test into a trunk Chrome or content_shell build and look at its
result. (For tests in the http/ directory, start the http server first.
See above. Navigate to
http://localhost:8000/
and proceed from there.) The best tests describe what they're looking for, but not all do, and sometimes things they're not explicitly testing are still broken. Compare it to Safari, Firefox, and IE if necessary to see if it's correct. If you're still not sure, find the person who knows the most about it and ask. - Some tests only work properly in content_shell, not Chrome, because they rely on extra APIs exposed there.
- Some tests only work properly when they're run in the web-test framework, not when they're loaded into content_shell directly. The test should mention that in its visible text, but not all do. So try that too. See "Running the tests", above.
- Load the test into a trunk Chrome or content_shell build and look at its
result. (For tests in the http/ directory, start the http server first.
See above. Navigate to
- If you think the test is correct, confirm your suspicion by looking at the
diffs between the expected result and the actual one.
- Make sure that the diffs reported aren't important. Small differences in spacing or box sizes are often unimportant, especially around fonts and form controls. Differences in wording of JS error messages are also usually acceptable.
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py path/to/your/test.html
produces a page listing all test results. Those which fail their expectations will include links to the expected result, actual result, and diff. These results are saved to$root_build_dir/layout-test-results
.- Alternatively the
--results-directory=path/for/output/
option allows you to specify an alternative directory for the output to be saved to.
- Alternatively the
- If you're still sure it's correct, rebaseline the test (see below). Otherwise...
- If you're lucky, your test is one that runs properly when you navigate to it
in content_shell normally. In that case, build the Debug content_shell
project, fire it up in your favorite debugger, and load the test file either
from a
file:
URL.- You'll probably be starting and stopping the content_shell a lot. In VS,
to save navigating to the test every time, you can set the URL to your
test (
file:
orhttp:
) as the command argument in the Debugging section of the content_shell project Properties. - If your test contains a JS call, DOM manipulation, or other distinctive piece of code that you think is failing, search for that in the Chrome solution. That's a good place to put a starting breakpoint to start tracking down the issue.
- Otherwise, you're running in a standard message loop just like in Chrome. If you have no other information, set a breakpoint on page load.
- You'll probably be starting and stopping the content_shell a lot. In VS,
to save navigating to the test every time, you can set the URL to your
test (
- If your test only works in full web-test mode, or if you find it simpler to
debug without all the overhead of an interactive session, start the
content_shell with the command-line flag
--run-web-tests
, followed by the URL (file:
orhttp:
) to your test. More information about running web tests in content_shell can be found here.- In VS, you can do this in the Debugging section of the content_shell project Properties.
- Now you're running with exactly the same API, theme, and other setup that the web tests use.
- Again, if your test contains a JS call, DOM manipulation, or other distinctive piece of code that you think is failing, search for that in the Chrome solution. That's a good place to put a starting breakpoint to start tracking down the issue.
- If you can't find any better place to set a breakpoint, start at the
TestShell::RunFileTest()
call incontent_shell_main.cc
, or atshell->LoadURL() within RunFileTest()
incontent_shell_win.cc
.
- Debug as usual. Once you've gotten this far, the failing web test is just a (hopefully) reduced test case that exposes a problem.
Note: HTTP Tests mean tests under web_tests/http/tests/
,
which is a subset of WebKit Layout Tests originated suite.
If you want to debug WPT's HTTP behavior, you should read
"Web platform tests" instead.
To run the server manually to reproduce/debug a failure:
third_party/blink/tools/run_blink_httpd.py
The web tests are served from http://127.0.0.1:8000/
. For example, to
run the test
web_tests/http/tests/serviceworker/chromium/service-worker-allowed.html
,
navigate to
http://127.0.0.1:8000/serviceworker/chromium/service-worker-allowed.html
. Some
tests behave differently if you go to 127.0.0.1
vs. localhost
, so use
127.0.0.1
.
To kill the server, hit any key on the terminal where run_blink_httpd.py
is
running, use taskkill
or the Task Manager on Windows, or killall
or
Activity Monitor on macOS.
The test server sets up an alias to the web_tests/resources
directory. For
example, in HTTP tests, you can access the testing framework using
src="/js-test-resources/js-test.js"
.
Check https://test-results.appspot.com/ to see how a test did in the most recent ~100 builds on each builder (as long as the page is being updated regularly).
A timeout will often also be a text mismatch, since the wrapper script kills the content_shell before it has a chance to finish. The exception is if the test finishes loading properly, but somehow hangs before it outputs the bit of text that tells the wrapper it's done.
Why might a test fail (or crash, or timeout) on buildbot, but pass on your local machine?
- If the test finishes locally but is slow, more than 10 seconds or so, that would be why it's called a timeout on the bot.
- Otherwise, try running it as part of a set of tests; it's possible that a test one or two (or ten) before this one is corrupting something that makes this one fail.
- If it consistently works locally, make sure your environment looks like the one on the bot (look at the top of the stdio for the webkit_tests step to see all the environment variables and so on).
- If none of that helps, and you have access to the bot itself, you may have to log in there and see if you can reproduce the problem manually.
- Do one of the following:
- Option A) Run from the
chromium/src
folder:third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py --additional-driver-flag='--remote-debugging-port=9222' --additional-driver-flag='--remote-allow-origins=*' --additional-driver-flag='--debug-devtools' --timeout-ms=6000000
- Option B) If you need to debug an http/tests/inspector test, start httpd
as described above. Then, run content_shell:
out/Default/content_shell --remote-debugging-port=9222 --additional-driver-flag='--remote-allow-origins=*' --additional-driver-flag='--debug-devtools' --run-web-tests http://127.0.0.1:8000/path/to/test.html
- Option A) Run from the
- Open
http://localhost:9222
in a stable/beta/canary Chrome, click the single link to open the devtools with the test loaded. - In the loaded devtools, set any required breakpoints and execute
test()
in the console to actually start the test.
NOTE: If the test is an html file, this means it's a legacy test so you need to add:
-
Add
window.debugTest = true;
to your test code as follows:window.debugTest = true; function test() { /* TEST CODE */ }
You can use git bisect
to find which
commit broke (or fixed!) a web test in a fully automated way. Unlike
bisect-builds.py, which
downloads pre-built Chromium binaries, git bisect
operates on your local
checkout, so it can run tests with content_shell
.
Bisecting can take several hours, but since it is fully automated you can leave it running overnight and view the results the next day.
To set up an automated bisect of a web test regression, create a script like this:
#!/bin/bash
# Exit code 125 tells git bisect to skip the revision.
gclient sync || exit 125
autoninja -C out/Debug -j100 blink_tests || exit 125
third_party/blink/tools/run_web_tests.py -t Debug \
--no-show-results --no-retry-failures \
path/to/web/test.html
Modify the out
directory, ninja args, and test name as appropriate, and save
the script in ~/checkrev.sh
. Then run:
chmod u+x ~/checkrev.sh # mark script as executable
git bisect start <badrev> <goodrev>
git bisect run ~/checkrev.sh
git bisect reset # quit the bisect session
See How to rebaseline.
See bugs with the component Blink>Infra for issues related to Blink tools, include the web test runner.
- If QuickTime is not installed, the plugin tests
fast/dom/object-embed-plugin-scripting.html
andplugins/embed-attributes-setting.html
are expected to fail.