Timing out tests in a Perl test harness

Question

How could I time out hanging tests in a Perl test harness?

I tried using the Test::Timer module, but I can't seem to make it link up nicely with the TAP::Harness in order to have an embedded timeout function for each test. Plus, I don't want to test if a bit of code takes x time to complete, I just want to run my tests and timeout in case they hung for any reason.

Answer 1

There was a similar question on PerlMonks recently.

Install Time::Limit.

This module will allow you to set time limits for individual test files:

use Test::More;
use Time::Limit "30";   # 30 seconds, quote marks are necessary!

Or set an overall time limit for running the entire test suite:

prove -MTime::Limit=120 t/*.t

If you're using forkprove instead of prove, then you need the time limiter to kill the entire process group:

forkprove -MTime::Limit=-group,120 t/*.t