--- title: "The test command" documentId: "mdbook:guide/src/cli/test.md" order: 10 licenseSource: "mdbook-guide" documentContext: [{"kind": "source", "html": "

mdBook 0.5.4 fixed documentation, MPL-2.0. Original chapter · Original Markdown · Editable Libx document · Complete fixed upstream source. · Editable source and build context.

"}, {"kind": "editorial", "html": "

Static Libx presentation: examples show their complete code, including lines hidden in the original demo. Editing, code execution and MathJax rendering are provided by the original project; formula examples retain their original TeX notation here. The document text and expanded examples are retained. This is an unofficial Libx static edition. Original text and examples are preserved; translated pages are identified separately.

"}] prev: {"text": "serve", "link": "/v0-5-4/en/01-guide/07-cli-serve"} next: {"text": "clean", "link": "/v0-5-4/en/01-guide/04-cli-clean"} ---

The test command

When writing a book, you sometimes need to automate some tests. For example, The Rust Programming Book uses a lot of code examples that could get outdated. Therefore it is very important for them to be able to automatically test these code examples.

mdBook supports a test command that will run all available tests in a book. At the moment, only Rust tests are supported.

Disable tests on a code block

rustdoc doesn’t test code blocks which contain the ignore attribute:

```rust,ignore
fn main() {}
```

rustdoc also doesn’t test code blocks which specify a language other than Rust:

```markdown
**Foo**: _bar_
```

rustdoc does test code blocks which have no language specified:

```
This is going to cause an error!
```

Specify a directory

The test command can take a directory as an argument to use as the book’s root instead of the current working directory.

mdbook test path/to/book

--library-path

The --library-path (-L) option allows you to add directories to the library search path used by rustdoc when it builds and tests the examples. Multiple directories can be specified with multiple options (-L foo -L bar) or with a comma-delimited list (-L foo,bar). The path should point to the Cargo build cache deps directory that contains the build output of your project. For example, if your Rust project’s book is in a directory named my-book, the following command would include the crate’s dependencies when running test:

mdbook test my-book -L target/debug/deps/

See the rustdoc command-line documentation for more information.

--chapter

The --chapter (-c) option allows you to test a specific chapter of the book using the chapter name or the relative path to the chapter.