Testing Apache Modules with Python and Ctypes

Abstract

Writing tests for your Apache module is often a developer's least favourite task, especially if you don't like using the Perl Apache Testing Framework! One of the main reasons for this is that it's difficult to test your C code on-the-fly without a running Apache server. Using ctypes, you can test your modules without a running httpd, just by writing and using simple Python scripts! In this talk we will look at how to compile a specific version of the Apache webserver for testing, and how to use a common Python unit testing framework to write and set up tests. We will also cover examples of writing simple test cases for the Catacomb WebDAV Server module.