On 10/8/12 12:17 PM, L. David Baron wrote:> On Monday 2012-10-08 12:05
> Updating the documentation on how to run the tests (which is spread
> across a bunch of places) is extremely important. You should also
> expect to get more feedback once that happens.
Well, one of the benefits of mach is you don't need documentation
outside of mach on *how* to run tests: |mach help| and |mach <command>
--help| provide all the technical info you need! You do need some
information on what the different types of tests are. But, I consider
that a different kind of documentation - one which will always need to
exist, regardless of the test invoking methodology.
> It also might end up being somewhat painful if we have
> simultaneously-supported branches that require different ways to run
> the tests (e.g., mach doesn't work on mozilla-release when make
> targets are no longer supported on mozilla-central), though this may
> depend on how difficult it is to translate between the ways of
> running tests.
This makes sense on the surface. But, I'm questioning whether the type
of people who touch "not mozilla-central" will forget so quickly how the
make targets worked. We should certainly transition gracefully. But, I'm
not sure 4 release cycles is any more advantageous than - let's say - 2.
On 10/8/12 12:19 PM, Kyle Huey wrote:
Does running tests through mach work if you're not doing anything else
through mach? That would be my big concern.
Yes. The mach commands for running tests are completely independent of
other commands and have no knowledge of the state of the build.
Actually, every command is completely independent. It's all up to the
individual command's implementation to integrate with other systems
(including the build system).
On 10/8/12 12:19 PM, Justin Lebar wrote:>> What other concerns are there?
> If we want to deprecate the make commands, could we modify the
> commands so they output a helpful tutorial in the new way? For
> example:
>
> $ TEST_PATH=foo/bar EXTRA_TEST_ARGS="--debugger=gdb
> --debugger-extra-args='-extra-gdb-args'" make mochitest-plain
> ERROR: make mochitest-plain has been unsupported.
>
> To run the tests you were trying to run, do
>
> $ ./mach --mochitest --test-path=foo/bar
> [Or whatever the correct syntax is.]
>
> For more information, run ./mach --mochitest --help, or see
> http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mach_unit_tests.
That is an excellent idea. As far as I'm concerned, the messaging can be
added today. e.g. "mach allows you to run tests easier. Run ./mach
mochitest-plain --help for more info." Once we've committed to
deprecating the make targets (if ever), that message can change, of course.
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