Testing¶

FakeDaqBackend supports hardware-free unit tests. See design doc §21.

Hardware test gating¶

Tests that need real NI hardware are split into four tiers, all skipped by default in CI:

Marker	Opt-in env var	Description
`hardware`	`NIDAQLIB_ENABLE_HARDWARE_TESTS=1`	Read-only access to a connected DAQ device.
`hardware_stateful`	`NIDAQLIB_ENABLE_STATEFUL_TESTS=1`	Changes task / device state (start/stop/reconfigure).
`hardware_output`	`NIDAQLIB_ENABLE_OUTPUT_TESTS=1`	Writes analog / digital / counter output.
`hardware_destructive`	`NIDAQLIB_ENABLE_DESTRUCTIVE_TESTS=1`	Calibration or other potentially unsafe operations.

The integration suite is currently tuned for the thermocouple hardware-day surface. Configure it with:

NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_DEVICE=cDAQ1Mod1
NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_CHANNEL_PRIMARY=cDAQ1Mod1/ai0
NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_CHANNEL_SECONDARY=cDAQ1Mod1/ai1  # optional
NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_TYPE=K                           # default K
NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_RATE_HZ=10                       # default 10
NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_MIN_DEGC=-50                     # default -50
NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_MAX_DEGC=200                     # default 200

If NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_CHANNEL_PRIMARY is unset, the tests synthesize <device>/ai0 from NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_DEVICE. Two-channel tests skip cleanly when NIDAQLIB_TEST_TC_CHANNEL_SECONDARY is unset.