An end-to-end test implemented in powershell

acceptance_test.ps1

# call this script like so:
# .\acceptance_test.ps1 -order random -size 1000 -algorithm merge

# call our program
java Assign1 $order $size $algorithm output.txt

# read our output file, convert each line to an integer, then sort, and output to an ascii text file
get-content output.txt | foreach-object { [Int] $_ } | sort-object | out-file -encoding ascii sorted.txt

# unfortunately, compare-object does not care about order, so it can't check the sort
# that is to say, this doesn't work:
# compare-object (get-content output.txt) (get-content sorted.txt)

# instead, use the 'fc' program to compare files like we did in the MS-DOS days
# its output is very noisy, though. Let's hide it and just print pass or fail ourselves.
fc.exe output.txt sorted.txt | out-null

# check the exit code of our last call
if ($?) {
  write-host "pass" -foreground "green"
} else {
  write-host "fail" -foreground "red"
}