RFC: Add descriptive names to doctests

text/0000-doctest-name.md

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+- Feature Name: doctest-name
+- Start Date: 2010-10-07
+- RFC PR: [rust-lang/rfcs#0000](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/pull/0000)
+- Rust Issue: [rust-lang/rust#0000](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/0000)
+
+# Summary
+[summary]: #summary
+
+Allow giving documentation tests names for identification in test runner
+output by including `name=NAME` in doctest code block info strings.
+
+# Motivation
+[motivation]: #motivation
+
+When doctests run, the test runner prints the name of the module that contains
+them and the line number that they start on. If a module contains many
+doctests, it is hard to identify which doctest is which in the test runner
+output by line number alone.
+
+By giving users the option to give names to doctests, identifying individual
+doctests in test runner output will be easier.
+
+# Guide-level explanation
+[guide-level-explanation]: #guide-level-explanation
+
+Doctests are written as fenced markdown code blocks that start and end
+with lines containing three backticks.
+
+The first set of backticks may be followed by an info string. For example, to
+tell the Rust compiler to ignore the doctest:
+
+````rust
+
+// This doctest won't run.
+```ignore
+assert_eq!(2 + 2, 4);
+```
+
+````
+
+Normally, doctests do not have names, and when run, the test runner will
+identify them by their test binary, module name, and line number:
+
+```
+   Doc-tests foo
+
+running 1 test
+test src/lib.rs - bar (line 37) ... ok
+
+test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured; 0 filtered out
+```
+
+If you'd like to have the test runner print a more informative name, perhaps
+because there are many doctests in a single file, you can put `name=NAME`,
+where `NAME` is the name the test should have, in the doctest's info string.
+`NAME` should be a valid Rust identifer.
+
+
+````rust
+
+```name=arithmetic
+assert_eq!(2 + 2, 4);
+```
+
+````
+
+```
+   Doc-tests foo
+
+running 1 test
+test src/lib.rs - bar::arithmetic (line 37) ... ok
+
+test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured; 0 filtered out
+```
+
+# Reference-level explanation
+[reference-level-explanation]: #reference-level-explanation
+
+The set of valid words that may appear in code block info strings is extended
+to include patterns of the form `name=IDENT`.
+
+This `IDENT` will be the name of the documentation test generated by the code
+block.
+
+When the test runner runs the documentation test, the test will be identified
+by this name, in addition to the test binary, module, and line number.
+
+Multiple `name=IDENT` words may not appear in a single code block's info
+string.
+
+`name=IDENT` may be combined with existing annotations like `rust` or
+`should_panic` by separating the annotations with commas:
+
+````
+
+```rust,name=foo
+assert!(true)
+```
+
+````
+
+The ability to include multiple comma-separated annotations is an existing
+feature.
+
+# Drawbacks
+[drawbacks]: #drawbacks
+
+- Adds complexity to code block parsing.
+
+- Requires parsing multi-word info strings, which are standard markdown, but
+  which does increase the complexity of the markdown parser.
+
+# Rationale and alternatives
+[rationale-and-alternatives]: #rationale-and-alternatives
+
+This design seems like the simplest design possible, although viable
+alternatives may have been overlooked.
+
+A previous version of this RFC included the additional restrictions that labels
+must be valid rust identifiers, and that labels must be unique within the same
+module. These restrictions were intended to allow the machinery that generates
+doctest tests to use the labels as the generated doctest function names. If
+this simplifies or improves the generated doctest functions, these restrictions
+might be desirable.
+
+The impact of adopting this RFC is minimal. Doctests test output will remain a
+little hard to make sense of.
+
+# Prior art
+[prior-art]: #prior-art
+
+None.
+
+# Unresolved questions
+[unresolved-questions]: #unresolved-questions
+
+None.
+
+# Future possibilities
+[future-possibilities]: #future-possibilities
+
+None.