freebsd/contrib/atf/atf-sh/atf-check.1

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.Dd August 13, 2026
.Dt ATF-CHECK 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm atf-check
.Nd executes a command and analyzes its results
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl s Ar qual:value
.Op Fl o Ar action:arg ...
.Op Fl e Ar action:arg ...
.Op Fl x
.Op Fl r Ar timeout[:interval]
.Ar command
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
executes a given command and analyzes its results, including
exit code, stdout, and stderr.
.Pp
.Bf Em
Test cases must use
.Xr atf-sh 3 Ns ' Ns s
.Nm atf_check
builtin function instead of calling this utility directly.
.Ef
.Pp
.Nm
will execute the provided command and apply checks specified
by arguments.
By default
.Nm
acts as if it was run with
.Fl s
.Ar exit:0
.Fl o
.Ar empty
.Fl e
.Ar empty .
.Pp
.Fl o
.Ar empty
and
.Fl e
.Ar empty
may be specified multiple times.
If they are specified multiple times, the checks will be applied to
the appropriate stream in the order they were provided.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag  -width XqualXvalueXX
.It Fl s Ar qual:value
Analyzes termination status.
Must be one of:
.Bl -tag -width signal:<value> -compact
.It Ar exit:<value>
checks that the program exited cleanly and that its exit status is equal to
.Va value .
The exit code can be omitted altogether, in which case any clean exit is
accepted.
.It Ar ignore
ignores the exit check.
.It Ar signal:<value>
checks that the program exited due to a signal, and (optionally) checks that the
signal which terminated the process is
.Va value .
The signal can be specified as a number, a name, or it can be omitted
altogether (in which case any signal is accepted).
.El
.Pp
Most of these checkers can be prefixed by the
.Sq not-
string, which effectively reverses the check.
.It Fl o Ar action:arg
Analyzes standard output.
Must be one of:
.Bl -tag -width inline:<value> -compact
.It Ar empty
checks that stdout is empty
.It Ar ignore
ignores stdout
.It Ar file:<path>
compares stdout with given file
.It Ar inline:<value>
compares stdout with inline value
.It Ar match:<regexp>
looks for a regular expression in stdout
.It Ar save:<path>
saves stdout to given file
.El
.Pp
Most of these checkers can be prefixed by the
.Sq not-
string, which effectively reverses the check.
.It Fl e Ar action:arg
Analyzes standard error.
The usage is identical to
.Fl o .
.It Fl x
Executes
.Ar command
as a shell command line, executing it with the system shell defined by
.Va ATF_SHELL .
You should avoid using this flag if at all possible to prevent shell quoting
issues.
.It Fl r Ar timeout[:interval]
Repeats failed checks until the
.Ar timeout
(in seconds) expires.
If unspecified, the default
.Ar interval
(in milliseconds) is 50 ms.
This can be used to wait for an expected update to the contents of a file.
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width ATFXSHELLXX -compact
.It Va ATF_SHELL
Path to the system shell to be used when the
.Fl x
is given to run commands.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Nm
exits 0 on success, and other (unspecified) value on failure.
.Sh EXAMPLES
The following are sample invocations from within a test case.
Note that we use the
.Nm atf_check
function provided by
.Xr atf-sh 3
instead of executing
.Nm
directly:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# Exit code 0, nothing on stdout/stderr
atf_check true

# Typical usage if failure is expected
atf_check -s not-exit:0 false

# Checking stdout/stderr
echo foobar >expout
atf_check -o file:expout -e inline:"xx\etyy\en" \e
    -x 'echo foobar ; printf "xx\etyy\en" >&2'

# Checking for a crash
atf_check -s signal:sigsegv my_program

# Combined checks
atf_check -o match:foo -o not-match:bar echo foo baz

# Wait 5 seconds for a line to show up in a file
( sleep 2 ; echo "testing 123" > $test_path ) &
atf-check -o ignore -e ignore -s exit:0 -r 5 \e
    grep "testing 123" $test_path
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr atf-sh 1