# Adding test target to Swift Package (--type executable)

If you have used SPM to create the command line application before `Swift 5.9.0`, the project structure used to be as follows:

```swift
Package.swift
README.md
.gitignore
Sources/
Sources/SamplePackage/main.swift
Tests/
Tests/LinuxMain.swift
Tests/SamplePackageTests/
Tests/SamplePackageTests/SamplePackageTests.swift
Tests/SamplePackageTests/XCTestManifests.swift
```

The test target and the basic scaffolding for it were available on the package creation.

With the recent [changes](https://forums.swift.org/t/update-to-swift-package-init-templates/63145) to simplify the templating of the package `--type` , test target is only added to the package `--type library` and not to `--type tool` and `--type executable`.

`tool` is the newly added type that creates the package of type `executable` with the dependency for [SwiftArgumentParser](https://github.com/apple/swift-argument-parser) already added to the package.

The new file structure looks as follows:

```bash
// --type executable
./executable
./executable/.gitignore
./executable/Package.swift
./executable/Sources
./executable/Sources/executable.swift

// --type tool
./tool
./tool/.gitignore
./tool/Package.swift
./tool/Sources
./tool/Sources/tool.swift

// --type empty
./empty
./empty/Package.swift

// --type library
./library
./library/Tests
./library/Tests/libraryTests
./library/Tests/libraryTests/libraryTests.swift
./library/.gitignore
./library/Package.swift
./library/Sources
./library/Sources/library
./library/Sources/library/library.swift
```

You can find more details about the change in this [PR](https://github.com/apple/swift-package-manager/pull/6144).

Now, if you want to add the test target to the package of `--type tool` or `--type executable` with newer tool-chain of `Swift 5.9.0`, you can follow these steps:

1. Create the package:
    
    ```bash
    $ mkdir SamplePackage
    $ cd SamplePackage
    $ swift package init --type executable
    ```
    
    ```bash
    Creating executable package: SamplePackage
    Creating Package.swift
    Creating .gitignore
    Creating Sources/
    Creating Sources/main.swift
    ```
    
2. Open `Package.swift`. It should look like this:
    
    ```swift
    // swift-tools-version: 5.9
    // The swift-tools-version declares the minimum version of Swift required to build this package.
    
    import PackageDescription
    
    let package = Package(
        name: "SamplePackage",
        targets: [
            // Targets are the basic building blocks of a package, defining a module or a test suite.
            // Targets can depend on other targets in this package and products from dependencies.
            .executableTarget(
                name: "SamplePackage"),
        ]
    )
    ```
    
3. Update `Package.swift` as below:
    
    ```swift
    // swift-tools-version: 5.9
    // The swift-tools-version declares the minimum version of Swift required to build this package.
    
    import PackageDescription
    
    let package = Package(
        name: "SamplePackage",
        targets: [
            // Targets are the basic building blocks of a package, defining a module or a test suite.
            // Targets can depend on other targets in this package and products from dependencies.
            .executableTarget(
                name: "SamplePackage",
                path: "Sources"
            ),
            .testTarget(
                name: "SamplePackageTests",
                dependencies: ["SamplePackage"],
                path: "Tests"
            )
        ]
    )
    ```
    
    Add `.testTarget` to the array of `targets` and add the main target `SamplePackage` to its dependencies list. Also, add the path to the `Tests` folder.
    
4. Add a sample test file with `@testable import <main module>` to validate that the tests can resolve the main module.
    
    Example test file:
    
    ```swift
    import XCTest
    @testable import SamplePackage
    
    class ExampleTests: XCTestCase {
        func testExample() {
    
        }
    }
    ```
    
    The updated file structure should look as below:
    
    ```bash
    SamplePackage
    SamplePackage/.gitignore
    SamplePackage/Package.swift
    SamplePackage/Sources
    SamplePackage/Sources/main.swift
    SamplePackage/Tests/ExampleTests.swift
    ```
    
5. Validate if tests are running successfully via Xcode `⌘ + U` and via the command line `swift test`
    

Let me know if you found this helpful. Feel free to tweet me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/javalnanda) if you have any additional tips or feedback.

Thanks.