Quoting Vincent Lefevre (vinc...@vinc17.net): > On 2015-04-13 15:50:40 -0500, David Wright wrote: > > That's staggering. My /var/lib/dpkg/info has ~8900 files and occupies > > 462848 bytes. So that would be over ½million files in your case. > > Does eftests stand for "excessive files tests"! > > It means "elementary function tests", but what this doesn't say is > that these tests are exhaustive: 1 file = a small interval on which > the double-precision function (e.g. exp, log) can be approximated > by a small-degree polynomial, and the whole double-precision domain > must be covered. > > Now, more interestingly, the fault is due to... proprietary software. > I wrote these tests about 15 years ago and I needed rigorous interval > arithmetic in multiple precision, and at that time, the Maple intpak > package was the only thing I found (though a few years later, despite > what its documentation said, it was shown that it was not rigorous at > all, and I might have chosen a better solution with free software). > So, I had to use Maple, and still use it (now with intpakX, which is > better but still based on assumptions that could be wrong) because I > haven't rewritten my tests completely. Maple is only used for ISO C > code generation. In normal use, code is generated, then run, and after > a few minutes (to get the result), the corresponding program can be > removed, so that few files are present in such a directory at the same > time. But some colleague in another lab needed these test files and he > didn't have Maple. So, I had to generate all of them (yes, something > like half a million) and give him a huge compressed tar file (not sent > by e-mail, of course!).
Good to see people testing their tools. Perhaps someone like you came across the famous HP35 bug. In the past, I expect you would have been forced to store your files in a tree using a method similar to Debian's pool to avoid running out of directory entries. Cheers, David. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150415191940.gc31...@alum.home
