On 20/2/23 16:53, Neil Roberts wrote:
Hi folks,
Hi Neil!
Does anybody remember VkRunner? It’s a little tool to help write shader-based tests for Vulkan. It’s the same concept as Piglit’s shader_runner but for Vulkan instead of OpenGL. There are a couple of tests using it in Piglit but apart from that it never really got off the ground. Anyway, I’ve been trying to learn some Rust lately and in order to get some experience working with a non-trivial project I decided to port VkRunner to Rust.
I have been trying to find a time slot to learn Rust too. If you have issues around with pending features perhaps one of these days I join your initiative.
The port is now complete and available here: https://github.com/bpeel/vkrunner/ It’s a drop-in replacement for the original VkRunner so it should be possible to start using it in a CI system by just changing the git repo, assuming the rust compiler is installed. I was thinking that now that Mesa has some Rust code in it anyway it might not be too unreasonable to expect CI systems to have the Rust compiler available. Other than that there’s not much advantage to using one or the other except for the warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you’re using a project written in a memory-safe language.
If the rust-based vkrunner has the same features and can run the same kind of tests that the original c-based vkrunner, I think that using a memory-safe language is an advantage that goes beyond just a warm fuzzy feeling.
If that is the case, I think that it is a good idea to replace one with the other.
I also took the opportunity to add a whole bunch of unit tests so in theory the Rust port might be more robust. It’s currently using Meson as the build system. In the beginning this was necessary because I did the port gradually and it’s probably the best build system if you have a mix of C and Rust code. Now that the port is complete it’d probably be trivial to start using Cargo instead. I’m not sure which would be better. It’s not using any external crates so it doesn’t really need Cargo for now. Now that the port is complete it might be nice to start adding more features. If anyone else hasn’t taken the plunge to start using Rust yet this might be a nice project to get involved in if you fancy helping. Kind regards, – Neil
