GNU bug report logs -
#13478
Don't deprecate or remove 'serial-tests'
Previous Next
Full log
View this message in rfc822 format
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Your bug report
#13478: Don't deprecate or remove 'serial-tests'
which was filed against the automake package, has been closed.
The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to 13478 <at> debbugs.gnu.org.
--
13478: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=13478
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact help-debbugs <at> gnu.org with problems
[Message part 2 (message/rfc822, inline)]
On 01/17/2013 07:26 PM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
> On 01/17/2013 07:16 PM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
>>
>> For some reason this is marked as deprecated.
>>
>> This is bad: parallel tests are fine for tiny tests which use only a
>> little bit of memory. However if your tests are very large and use a
>> lot of RAM then running them in parallel can cause them to fail
>> unnecessarily.
>>
>> The libguestfs test suite is exactly like this: parallel tests causes
>> it to fail because you end up running multiple parallel VMs. Serial
>> tests is the right way to go for us.
>>
> This is a documentation problem, mostly (and my fault BTW, but let's move on).
> We should say that 'paralle-tests' is "encouraged", rather than saying that
> 'serial-tests' is "deprecated". In fact, there are no plan to ever remove it,
> or even give runtime warnings upon its usage.
>
Fixed by the patch below. I'm thus closing this bug report.
Thanks,
Stefano
---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< ---- 8< -----
From e195e54eb13dd781413ffc617716b4cfe320c0b7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
Message-Id: <e195e54eb13dd781413ffc617716b4cfe320c0b7.1358506153.git.stefano.lattarini <at> gmail.com>
From: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini <at> gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:39:28 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] docs: serial-tests are not deprecated, just discouraged
We don't plan to remove support for them, nor to have the serial-tests
option give any kind of runtime warning, so don't alarm the users
still using serial tests with pointless "deprecation" or "obsolescence"
warnings.
Fixes automake bug#13478.
* doc/automake.texi: Adjust.
* THANKS: Update.
Signed-off-by: Stefano Lattarini <stefano.lattarini <at> gmail.com>
---
THANKS | 1 +
doc/automake.texi | 16 ++++++++++------
2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/THANKS b/THANKS
index 58745e7..21ea373 100644
--- a/THANKS
+++ b/THANKS
@@ -331,6 +331,7 @@ Reuben Thomas rrt <at> sc3d.org
Rich Wales richw <at> webcom.com
Richard Boulton richard <at> tartarus.org
Richard Dawe rich <at> phekda.freeserve.co.uk
+Richard W.M. Jones rjones <at> redhat.com
Rob Savoye rob <at> cygnus.com
Robert Bihlmeyer robbe <at> orcus.priv.at
Robert Boehne rboehne <at> ricardo-us.com
diff --git a/doc/automake.texi b/doc/automake.texi
index ffc6819..3b830d5 100644
--- a/doc/automake.texi
+++ b/doc/automake.texi
@@ -319,7 +319,7 @@ Support for test suites
Simple Tests
* Scripts-based Testsuites:: Automake-specific concepts and terminology
-* Serial Test Harness:: Older (and obsolescent) serial test harness
+* Serial Test Harness:: Older (and discouraged) serial test harness
* Parallel Test Harness:: Generic concurrent test harness
Using the TAP test protocol
@@ -8806,7 +8806,7 @@ terminology)?
@menu
* Scripts-based Testsuites:: Automake-specific concepts and terminology
-* Serial Test Harness:: Older (and obsolescent) serial test harness
+* Serial Test Harness:: Older (and discouraged) serial test harness
* Parallel Test Harness:: Generic concurrent test harness
@end menu
@@ -8979,12 +8979,16 @@ by the tests, not the tests themselves. Of course you can set
@code{TESTS = $(check_PROGRAMS)} if all your programs are test cases.
@node Serial Test Harness
-@subsection Older (and obsolescent) serial test harness
+@subsection Older (and discouraged) serial test harness
@cindex @option{serial-tests}, Using
-@emph{This harness is obsolescent}, and kept for backward-compatibility
-reasons only. The user is strongly advised to just use the parallel test
-harness instead (@pxref{Parallel Test Harness}).
+First, note that today the use of this harness is strongly discouraged in
+favour of the parallel test harness (@pxref{Parallel Test Harness}).
+Still, there are @emph{few} situations when the advantages offered by
+the parallel harness are irrelevant, and when test concurrency can
+even cause tricky problems. In those cases, it might make sense to
+still use the serial harness, for simplicity and reliability (we still
+suggest trying to give the parallel harness a shot though).
The serial test harness is enabled by the Automake option
@option{serial-tests}. It operates by simply running the tests serially,
--
1.8.1.rc3.192.g2d0029e
[Message part 3 (message/rfc822, inline)]
For some reason this is marked as deprecated.
This is bad: parallel tests are fine for tiny tests which use only a
little bit of memory. However if your tests are very large and use a
lot of RAM then running them in parallel can cause them to fail
unnecessarily.
The libguestfs test suite is exactly like this: parallel tests causes
it to fail because you end up running multiple parallel VMs. Serial
tests is the right way to go for us.
Rich.
--
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
Fedora now supports 80 OCaml packages (the OPEN alternative to F#)
This bug report was last modified 12 years and 130 days ago.
Previous Next
GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham,
1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd,
1994-97 Ian Jackson.