diff --git a/Makefile.in b/Makefile.in
index 7166c1887..2a64ad00c 100644
--- a/Makefile.in
+++ b/Makefile.in
@@ -350,14 +350,14 @@ test: test-prep install-force test_low_level test_high_level
 # We want the various tests to run serially so their output doesn't mix
 # We can do that by adding ordering dependencies based on what goals are being used.
 #
-test_goals := test_low_level test_fishscript test_interactive
+test_goals := test_low_level test_invocation test_fishscript test_interactive
 
 #
 # The following variables define targets that depend on the tests. If any more targets
 # are added that depend, directly or indirectly, on tests, they need to be recorded here.
 #
 test_test_deps = test_low_level $(test_high_level_test_deps)
-test_high_level_test_deps = test_fishscript test_interactive
+test_high_level_test_deps = test_invocation test_fishscript test_interactive
 
 active_test_goals = $(filter $(test_goals),$(foreach a,$(or $(MAKECMDGOALS),$(.DEFAULT_GOAL)),$(a) $($(a)_test_deps)))
 filter_up_to = $(eval b:=1)$(foreach a,$(2),$(and $(b),$(if $(subst $(1),,$(a)),$(a),$(eval b:=))))
@@ -371,9 +371,13 @@ test_low_level: fish_tests $(call filter_up_to,test_low_level,$(active_test_goal
 
 test_high_level: DESTDIR = $(PWD)/test/root/
 test_high_level: prefix = .
-test_high_level: test-prep install-force test_fishscript test_interactive
+test_high_level: test-prep install-force test_invocation test_fishscript test_interactive
 .PHONY: test_high_level
 
+test_invocation: $(call filter_up_to,test_invocation,$(active_test_goals))
+	cd tests; ./invocation.sh
+.PHONY: test_invocation
+
 test_fishscript: $(call filter_up_to,test_fishscript,$(active_test_goals))
 	cd tests; ../test/root/bin/fish test.fish
 .PHONY: test_fishscript
@@ -382,6 +386,7 @@ test_interactive: $(call filter_up_to,test_interactive,$(active_test_goals))
 	cd tests; ../test/root/bin/fish interactive.fish
 .PHONY: test_interactive
 
+
 #
 # commands.hdr collects documentation on all commands, functions and
 # builtins
diff --git a/tests/invocation.sh b/tests/invocation.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..645031e97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,242 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+##
+# Test that the invocation of the fish executable works as we hope.
+#
+# We try to run the 'fish' binary with different command line switches.
+# Each time we check against an output that we expect.
+#
+# We are testing fish's invocation itself, so this is not written in
+# fish itself - if the invocation wasn't working, we'd never even
+# be able to this test to check that the invocation wasn't working.
+#
+
+# Errors will be fatal
+set -e
+
+# If any command in the pipeline fails report the rc of the first fail.
+set -o pipefail
+
+# If nothing matches a glob expansion, return nothing (not the glob
+# itself)
+shopt -s nullglob
+
+# The directory this script is in (as everything is relative to here)
+here="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")" && pwd -P)"
+cd "$here"
+
+# The temporary directory to use
+temp_dir="$here/../test"
+
+# The files we're going to execute are in the 'invocation' directory.
+files_to_test=($(echo invocation/*.invoke))
+
+# The fish binary we are testing - for manual testing, may be overridden
+fish_exe="${fish_exe:-../test/root/bin/fish}"
+fish_dir="$(dirname "${fish_exe}")"
+fish_leaf="$(basename "${fish_exe}")"
+
+
+# Terminal colouring
+term_red="$(tput setaf 1)"
+term_green="$(tput setaf 2)"
+term_yellow="$(tput setaf 3)"
+term_blue="$(tput setaf 4)"
+term_magenta="$(tput setaf 5)"
+term_cyan="$(tput setaf 6)"
+term_white="$(tput setaf 7)"
+term_reset="$(tput sgr0)"
+
+
+##
+# Set variables to known values so that they will not affect the
+# execution of the test.
+function clean_environment() {
+
+    # Reset the terminal variables to a known type.
+    export TERM=xterm
+    unset ITERM_PROFILE
+
+    # And the language as well, so that we do not see differences in
+    # output dur to the user's locale
+    export LANGUAGE=en_US:en
+
+    # Ensure that the fish environment we use is in a clean state
+    rm -rf "${temp_dir}/data" "${temp_dir}/home"
+    mkdir -p "${temp_dir}/data" "${temp_dir}/home" "${temp_dir}/home/fish"
+    export XDG_DATA_HOME="${temp_dir}/data"
+    export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="${temp_dir}/home"
+}
+
+
+##
+# Fail completely :-(
+function fail() {
+    say red "FAIL: $@" >&2
+    exit 1
+}
+
+
+##
+# Coloured output
+function say() {
+    local color_name="$1"
+    local msg="$2"
+    local color_var="term_${color_name}"
+    local color="${!color_var}"
+
+    echo "$color$msg$term_reset"
+}
+
+
+##
+# Actual testing of a .invocation file.
+function test_file() {
+    local file="$*"
+    local dir="$(dirname "$file")"
+    local base="$(basename "$file" .invoke)"
+    local test_config="${dir}/${base}.config"
+    local test_stdout="${dir}/${base}.tmp.out"
+    local test_stderr="${dir}/${base}.tmp.err"
+    local want_stdout="${dir}/${base}.out"
+    local grep_stdout="${dir}/${base}.grep"
+    local want_stderr="${dir}/${base}.err"
+    local empty="${dir}/${base}.empty"
+    local -a filter
+    local rc=0
+    local test_args_literal
+    local test_args
+    local out_status=0
+    local err_status=0
+
+    # Literal arguments, for printing
+    test_args_literal="$(cat "$file")"
+    # Read the test arguments, escaping things that might be processed by us
+    test_args="$(sed 's/\$/\$/' "$file" | tr '\n' ' ')"
+
+    # Create an empty file so that we can compare against it if needed
+    echo -n > "${empty}"
+
+    # If they supplied a configuration file, we create it here
+    if [ -f "$test_config" ] ; then
+        cat "$test_config" > "${temp_dir}/home/fish/config.fish"
+    else
+        rm -f "${temp_dir}/home/fish/config.fish"
+    fi
+
+    # In some cases we want to check only a part of the output.
+    # For those we filter the output through grep'd matches.
+    if [ -f "$grep_stdout" ] ; then
+        # grep '-o', '-E' and '-f' are supported by the tools in modern GNU
+        # environments, and on OS X.
+        filter=('grep' '-o' '-E' '-f' "$grep_stdout")
+    else
+        filter=('cat')
+    fi
+
+    echo -n "Testing file $file ... "
+
+    # The hoops we are jumping through here, with changing directory are
+    # so that we always execute fish as './fish', which means that any
+    # error messages will appear the same, even if the tested binary
+    # is not one that we built here.
+    # We disable the exit-on-error here, so that we can catch the return
+    # code.
+    set +e
+    eval "cd \"$fish_dir\" && \"./$fish_leaf\" $test_args" \
+           2> "$test_stderr" \
+           < /dev/null       \
+           | ${filter[*]}    \
+           > "$test_stdout"
+    rc="$?"
+    set -e
+
+    if [ "$rc" != '0' ] ; then
+        # Write the return code on to the end of the stderr, so that it can be
+        # checked like anything else.
+        echo "RC: $rc" >> "${test_stderr}"
+    fi
+
+    # If the wanted output files are not present, they are assumed empty.
+    if [ ! -f "$want_stdout" ] ; then
+        want_stdout="$empty"
+    fi
+    if [ ! -f "$want_stderr" ] ; then
+        want_stderr="$empty"
+    fi
+
+    # The standard error that we get will report errors using non-relative
+    # filenames, so we try to replace these with the variable names.
+    #
+    # However, fish will also have helpfully translated the home directory
+    # into '~/' in the error report. Consequently, we need to perform a
+    # small fix-up so that we can replace the string sanely.
+    xdg_config_in_home="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME"
+    if [ "${xdg_config_in_home:0:${#HOME}}" = "${HOME}" ] ; then
+        xdg_config_in_home="~/${xdg_config_in_home:${#HOME}+1}"
+    fi
+    # 'sed -i' (inplace) has different syntax on BSD and GNU versions of
+    # the tool, so cannot be used here, hence we write to a separate file,
+    # and then move back.
+    sed "s,$xdg_config_in_home,\$XDG_CONFIG_HOME,g" "${test_stderr}" > "${test_stderr}.new"
+    mv -f "${test_stderr}.new" "${test_stderr}"
+
+    # Check the results
+    if ! diff "${test_stdout}" "${want_stdout}" >/dev/null 2>/dev/null ; then
+        out_status=1
+    fi
+    if ! diff "${test_stderr}" "${want_stderr}" >/dev/null 2>/dev/null ; then
+        err_status=1
+    fi
+
+    if [ "$out_status" = '0' ] && \
+       [ "$err_status" = '0' ] ; then
+        say green "ok"
+        # clean up tmp files
+        rm -f "${test_stdout}" "${test_stderr}" "${empty}"
+        rc=0
+    else
+        say red "fail"
+        say blue "$test_args_literal" | sed 's/^/    /'
+
+        if [ "$out_status" != '0' ] ; then
+            say yellow "Output differs for file $file. Diff follows:"
+            colordiff -u "${test_stdout}" "${want_stdout}"
+        fi
+        if [ "$err_status" != '0' ] ; then
+            say yellow "Error output differs for file $file. Diff follows:"
+            colordiff -u "${test_stderr}" "${want_stderr}"
+        fi
+        rc=1
+    fi
+
+    return $rc
+}
+
+
+########################################################################
+# Main harness
+
+if [ ! -x "${fish_exe}" ] ; then
+    fail "Fish executable not found at '${fish_exe}'"
+fi
+
+clean_environment
+
+say cyan "Testing shell invocation funtionality"
+
+passed=0
+failed=0
+for file in ${files_to_test[*]} ; do
+   if ! test_file "$file" ; then
+       failed=$(( failed + 1 ))
+   else
+       passed=$(( passed + 1 ))
+   fi
+done
+
+echo "Encountered $failed errors in the invocation tests (out of $(( failed + passed )))."
+
+if [ "$failed" != 0 ] ; then
+    exit 1
+fi
+exit 0
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command-2.invoke b/tests/invocation/init-command-2.invoke
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..667c6273f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command-2.invoke
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+-C 'echo init-command' -C 'echo 2nd init-command'
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command-2.out b/tests/invocation/init-command-2.out
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..00962a99b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command-2.out
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+init-command
+2nd init-command
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command-mix-ordering.invoke b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix-ordering.invoke
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..1718e5c03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix-ordering.invoke
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+-c 'echo command' -C 'echo init-command'
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command-mix-ordering.out b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix-ordering.out
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8ca70f9a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix-ordering.out
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+init-command
+command
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command-mix.invoke b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix.invoke
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e40eb4088
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix.invoke
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+-C 'echo init-command' -c 'echo command'
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command-mix.out b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix.out
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8ca70f9a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command-mix.out
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+init-command
+command
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command.invoke b/tests/invocation/init-command.invoke
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..deb1f1061
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command.invoke
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+-C 'echo init-command'
diff --git a/tests/invocation/init-command.out b/tests/invocation/init-command.out
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..35db3ef38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/invocation/init-command.out
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+init-command