[Bro-Dev] Testing and Docs for Packages

[Jan Grashöfer]

Hi all,

building some small packages and playing around with a package for the
af_packet plugin (https://github.com/J-Gras/bro-af_packet-plugin), I
came across a question: How to deal with testing? For the
intel-extensions package (https://github.com/J-Gras/intel-extensions) I
adapted some scripts I found. While executing the tests is not an issue
(maybe only for me), they are hidden somewhere in the bro-pkg
directories, as of course only the scripts inside the script_dir are moved.

In general I think, making test cases available for users of a package
could be quite helpful. Further, I think we have also already mentioned
the possibility of compatibility checking regarding the installed Bro
version by executing tests. Thus I would propose introducing test_dir to
bro-pkg.meta for tests and a test command to execute the tests for
bro-pkg as a first step.

Another thing that would be great to have for packages would be
documentation. I've experimented with the broxygen feature but the doc
about generating docs is not that exhaustive ;) I think providing an
easy-to-use mechanism to generate documentation for thrid-party scripts
would be great. Ideally the generated documentation would link to Bro's
online doc for built-in types and scripts.

What do you think about testing and docs for packages?

Jan