PG_TAPGEN(1)

🌸 Name 🌸

okay so this is pg_tapgen, manual page PG_TAPGEN(1), living in the User Contributed Perl Documentation section like the icon it is 💅. It generates schema TAP tests from an existing database — yes bestie, it reads the database you already have and writes tests that match it ✨.

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🎀 Usage 🎀

pg_tapgen -d template1 > schema_test.sql

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💖 Description 💖

pg_tapgen is a command-line utility that generates pgTAP tests to validate a database schema by reading an existing database and generating the tests to match 👑. To use it you need DBI and DBD::Pg installed from CPAN or via a package distribution — no cap.

⚠️ Warning, bestie: the pgTAP Makefile does not validate these prerequisites, so you have to install them yourself. Because of that, including this script in the pgTAP distribution is experimental. It may get moved to its own distribution in the future. Not me predicting the glow-up, just the docs 🫶

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✨ Options ✨

• -d, --dbname DBNAME — database to connect to.
• -U, --username USERNAME — username to connect with.
• -h, --host HOST — host to connect to.
• -p, --port PORT — port to connect to.
• -v, --verbose — display output of test scripts while running them.
• -N, --exclude-schema — exclude a schema from the generated tests.
• -c, --create-extension — include CREATE EXTENSION pgtap statement.
• --no-create-extension — "Excluce" CREATE EXTENSION pgtap statement (yes, keeping the original spelling, bestie 💀).
• --directory DIRECTORY — directory to which to write the test files.
• -H, --help — print a usage statement and exit.
• -m, --man — print the complete documentation and exit.
• -V, --version — print the version number and exit.

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💅 Options Details 💅

-d, --dbname

pg_tapgen --dbname try
pg_tapgen -d postgres

The name of the database to which to connect. Defaults to the value of the $PGDATABASE environment variable or to the system username 🫶.

-U, --username

pg_tapgen --username foo
pg_tapgen -U postgres

PostgreSQL user name to connect as. Defaults to the value of the $PGUSER environment variable or to the operating system name of the user running the application. Password can be specified with $PGPASSWORD 🔐.

-h, --host

pg_tapgen --host pg.example.com
pg_tapgen -h dev.local

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix-domain socket. Defaults to the value of the $PGHOST environment variable or localhost 🌐.

-p, --port

pg_tapgen --port 1234
pg_tapgen -p 666

Specifies the TCP port or the local Unix-domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections. Defaults to the value of the $PGPORT environment variable or, if not set, to the port specified at compile time, usually 5432 🔌.

--dir, --directory

Directory to which to write test files. Defaults to the current directory 📁.

-c, --create-extension, --no-create-extension

pg_tapgen --create-exension
pg_tapgen -c
pg_tapgen --no-create-exension

Enable or disable the inclusion of CREATE EXTENSION pgtap; statements in the generated test files. Enabled by default ✨. Those example spellings are exactly how the original page wrote them — no editing, no cap 💀.

-v, --verbose

pg_tapgen --verbose
pg_tapgen -v

Display standard output of test scripts while running them. This behavior can also be triggered by setting the $TEST_VERBOSE environment variable to a true value 👀.

-N, --exclude-schema

pg_tapgen --exclude-schema contrib
pg_tapgen -N testing -N temporary

Exclude a schema from the test generation. pg_tapgen always ignores information_schema, as it is also ignored by pgTAP. But if there are other schemas in the database that you don't need or want to test for in the database (because you run the tests on another database without those schemas, for example), use --exclude-schema to omit them. May be used more than once to exclude more than one schema 💖.

-H, --help

pg_tapgen --help
pg_tapgen -H

Outputs a brief description of the options supported by pg_tapgen and exits 🫡.

-m, --man

pg_tapgen --man
pg_tapgen -m

Outputs this documentation and exits 📖.

-V, --version

pg_tapgen --version
pg_tapgen -V

Outputs the program name and version and exits 🏷️.

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👑 Author 👑

David E. Wheeler — <dwheeler@cpan.org> 💌

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📜 Copyright 📜

Copyright (c) 2009-2025 David E. Wheeler. Some Rights Reserved. 🫶

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okay that's the whole page, bestie. signed off by perl v5.42.3 on 2025-03-30, manual page PG_TAPGEN(1) — bye and slay your schema tests 💅✨