base_dir

Please note if you set this to a particular area, we will delete it unless you specifically use the 'keep_db' option. SO be care where you point it!

Here's an example use. I often want the test database setup in my local testing directory, that makes it easy for me to examine the logs, etc. I do:

        BASE_DIR=t/tmp KEEP_DB=1 prove -lv t/my-postgresql-test.t

Now I can roundtrip the test as often as I want and in between tests I can review the logs, start the database manually and login (see the 'keep_db' section below for an example of how to do this). Next time I run the tests the framework will automatically clean it up and rest the schema for testing.

You may need to do this if you are stuck on a shared host and can't write anything to /tmp. Remember, you can also put the 'base_dir' option into configuration instead of having to type it into the commandline each time!

Note that if you override the BASE_DIR we will set the 'force_drop_tables' option to true to ensure that we properly clean the database before trying to install tables and fixtures.

initdb and postmaster

If you have to set these, please note you need to set the full path to the required file, not just the path to containing directory.

keep_db

If you use the 'keep_db' option and want to start and log into the test generated database instance, you can start the database by noticing the diagnostic output that should be generated at the top of your test. It will look similar to:

        # Starting postgresql with: /Library/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/postmaster \
         -p 15432 -D /tmp/E4tuZF5uFR/data
        # DBI->connect('DBI:Pg:dbname=template1;port=15432','postgres',''])

If you have specified the base_dir to use, this output will not be displayed by default. You can force it's display by setting tdbic_debug to true. eg.

    TDBIC_DEBUG=1 BASE_DIR=t/tmp KEEP_DB=1 prove -lv t/my-postgresql-test.t

You can then start the database instance yourself with something like:

        ./Library/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/postmaster -p 15432 \
        -D /tmp/E4tuZF5uFR/data &

You will get output that looks like:

        [1] 1564
        LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
        LOG:  autovacuum launcher started

There will be some additional output to the term and then the server will go into the background. If you don't like the extra output, you can just redirect it all to /dev/null or whatever is similar for your OS.

You can now log into the test generated database instance with:

        psql -h localhost --user postgres --port 15432 -d template1

You may need to specify the full path to 'mysql' if it's not in your search $PATH.

When you are finished you can then kill the process. In this case our reported process id is '1564'

        kill 1564

And then you might wish to 'tidy' up temp

        rm -rf /tmp/E4tuZF5uFR

All the above assume you are on a unix or unixlike system. Would welcome document patches for how to do all the above on windows.

Noisy warnings

        NOTICE:  drop cascades to 2 other objects
        DETAIL:  drop cascades to constraint cd_track_fk_cd_id_fkey on table cd_track
        drop cascades to constraint cd_artist_fk_cd_id_fkey on table cd_artist
        NOTICE:  CREATE TABLE / PRIMARY KEY will create implicit index "cd_pkey" for table "cd"

In general these are harmless and can be ignored.

If you like to avoid these messages, you could change your connect_info like this:

    connect_info => {
        dsn => 'dbi:Pg:dbname=dbname', 
        user => 'user', 
        pass => 'secret',
        on_connect_do => 'SET client_min_messages=WARNING;',
    },