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I'm writing tests for an interactive function. I've been using the unread-command-events variable in conjunction with call-interactively to verify that it does the right thing.

However, I just discovered that this doesn't work in batch mode.

For example:

(defun my-dummy (s)
  (interactive "sWrite something: ")
  s)

(ert-deftest my-dummy-test ()
  (let ((unread-command-events (listify-key-sequence "Hi!\n")))
    (should (equal (call-interactively #'my-dummy)
                   "Hi!"))))

When running ert in interactive mode, this works. However, in batch mode, Emacs stops and read the keyboard without consuming input from unread-command-events.

In this a bug in batch mode or is this the expected behaviour?

Is there any other way to do this in batch mode?

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1 Answer 1

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This is expected behavior, but you can circumvent this problem by let-binding executing-kbd-macro to t, which will convince the minibuffer commands to read from unread-command-events rather than from stdin.

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  • Can you elaborate why this is the expected behavior. Binding a somewhat unrelated variable executing-kbd-macro sounds like a hack in my eyes. At the very minimum, this should be documented in relevant places, e.g. in the documentation of unread-command-events.
    – Lindydancer
    Commented Sep 23, 2020 at 7:38
  • @Lindydancer: Agreed, it's a hack. I found out how to do it by reading the C code; I don't think it was designed for what you need, it just happens to do the trick. M-x report-emacs-bug might be in order to request either better doc, or some less hacky solution.
    – Stefan
    Commented Sep 23, 2020 at 13:45

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