How can I run Perl test suite automatically when files change?

Question

Is there a tool that would watch file changes in a directory tree of a Perl application and re-run the test suite every time I save changes to some module? Something akin to

Answer 1

I don't know of any generic filesystem monitoring widget, but here's the Perl specific half.

sub run_tests {
    my $prove_out = `prove -lr`;
    my $tests_passed = $? == 0;

    return "" if $tests_passed;
    return $prove_out;
}

This uses the prove utility that comes with Test::Harness 3. It exits non-zero on test failure. Plug that into your filesystem monitoring thing and you're set.