[Lustre-discuss] Metadata storage in test script files

[Andreas Dilger]

I'm chopping out most of the discussion, to try and focus on the core issues here.

On 2012-05-02, at 10:35 AM, Roman Grigoryev wrote:
> On 05/02/2012 01:25 PM, Chris wrote:
>> I cannot suppose if you should store this information with your results
>> because I have no insight into your private testing practices.
> 
> I just want to have info not only in maloo or other big systems but in
> default test harness. Developers can run results by hand, tester also
> should have possibility to execute in specific environment. If we can
> provides some helpful info - i think it is good. few kilobytes is not so
> match as logs, but can help in some cases.

I don't think you two are in disagreement here.  We want the test descriptions and other metadata with the tests, open for any usage (human, test scripts, different test harnesses, etc).

>> I don't think people should introduce dependencies either, but they have and we have to deal with that fact. In your example if C is dependent on A and A is removed then C cannot be run.
> 
> Maybe I'm incorrect, but fight with dependencies looks like more
> important then adding descriptions.

For the short term.  However, finding dependencies is easily done through simple mechanical steps (e.g. try to run each subtest independently).  Since the policy in the past was to make all tests independent, I expect that not very many tests will actually have dependencies.

However, the main reason for having good descriptions of the tests is to gain an understanding of what part of the code the tests are trying to exercise, what problem they were written to verify, and what value they provide.  We cannot reasonably rewrite or modify tests safely if we don't have a good understanding of what they are doing today.  Also, this helps people running and debugging the tests and their failures for the long term.


Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger                       Whamcloud, Inc.
Principal Lustre Engineer            http://www.whamcloud.com/