A simple example that takes the RT package, which is a rather fragile testing framework, and wraps it inside an ASDF system using the previous ideas I just coded.

This allows declaring the dependency on the given plug-in, using the new class and relying on the fact that the tests will be automagically recorded in the system.

How this works?

- The new test class, specialized for RT, wraps new components which are "actions" before and at the end of any LOAD process.
- These actions save and restore the values of the variables in the RT package which are responsible for the tests being run.
- When the test system is loaded, RT stores the tests in the variables and the last action saves them all in the ASDF system.
- When the test system is first used, the class prepares a new component in the SYSTEM-TESTS fields which is a closure.

The plug-in in asdf-rt.lisp reveals various deficiencies:

- If we want a purely declarative syntax, without side effects, we have to specify symbols in other packages using strings (see the asdf-rt:rt-test-system) clas below.
- The parsing of DEFSYSTEM currently can not be customized by the class.
- Adding components to a module is not done using SHARED-INITIALIZE and this is bad because, once more, additional classes can not extend or process the list of components.

CL-USER> (asdf:test-system :my-package)
[...]
; loading system definition from
; /Users/jjgarcia/devel/asdf/my-package-test.asd into #<PACKAGE "ASDF0">
; registering #<RT-TEST-SYSTEM :MY-PACKAGE-TEST {1281F7A1}> as
; MY-PACKAGE-TEST
Doing 2 pending tests of 2 tests total.
Test MY-PACKAGE-TEST::TEST-001 failed
Form: (MY-FUNCTION 0)
Expected value: 1.0
Actual value: #<UNDEFINED-FUNCTION MY-FUNCTION {120504E9}>.
Test MY-PACKAGE-TEST::TEST-002 failed
Form: (HANDLER-CASE (AND (MY-FUNCTION 'MY-PACKAGE-TEST::A) NIL)
                    (ERROR (MY-PACKAGE-TEST::C) T))
Expected value: NIL
Actual value: T.
2 out of 2 total tests failed: MY-PACKAGE-TEST::TEST-001,

my-package.asd:
(defsystem :my-package
:components ((:file "my-package"))
:tests ((:system :my-package-test)))

my-package.lisp:
(in-package :cl-user)

(defun my-function (a)
(cos a))

my-package-test.asd:
(defsystem :my-package-test
    :asdf-dependencies (:asdf-rt)
    :class "ASDF-RT:RT-TEST-SYSTEM"
    :serial t
    :components ((:file "my-package-test")))

my-package-test.lisp:
(defpackage :my-package-test
(:use #+sbcl :sb-rt #+ecl :rt :cl))

(in-package :my-package-test)
(deftest test-001
(cl-user::my-function 0)
1.0)

(deftest test-002
(handler-case (and (cl-user::my-function 'a) nil)
    (error (c) t))
nil)

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