On Feb 10, 2006, at 10:04 AM, Philippe Bossut wrote:
John Anderson wrote:
Having written my first functional test yesterday I have some
thoughts. The biggest problem I encountered when trying to write
and debug tests is navigating all the layers:
my test <-> CATS <-> CPIA Script <-> Chandler
Fortunately I'm very familiar with Chandler, somewhat familiar
with CPIA Script and CATS is small enough to grock without much
effort. However, I suspect most developers would find all the
layers daunting and trying to debug things would only make it worse.
Agree with that.
One of the requirements is that the system be easy to use. Obviously
there is another layer of complexity over what we do with CATS but it
is still designed to be very easy for someone to pick up and start
writing scripts and to see legible output. Part of the deliverables
for the first version of this framework will be;
-Command line python wrapper (much like do_tests, a script is
imported and output is generated that is legible using a set of
default parameters for the framework)
-Sufficient Documentation ("Writting Chandler automation in 10
minutes" style doc, extended OAF documentation for developers who
wish to use non-default features in the system, and maybe most
importantly GOOD documentation for the chandler test library that can
facilitate both easy test script authoring and developer improvements
to the chandler testing library itself.
The output can be very customized using this framework, but the
default output will be humanly legible and go directly to a file.
Also, a -debug flag can be set, which sets all output in the
framework to be processed as it comes in to the output object. This
is no good for performance tests but will make debugging issues
worlds easier than in CATS.
To finish up, many of the extra layers that developer might find
"daunting" will be transparent in the implementation, but the output
that developers depend on (such as a tracebacks in the log if a
failure occures) are made easy and reliable by this abstraction.
I hope this alleviates your concerns.
-Mikeal
I think it would be preferable to make the small changes necessary
to CPIA Script to make it appropriate for testing instead of
adding another layer, e.g. CATS.
Improving CPIA Script to make scripting easier is indeed a good
idea. I don't think it will replace entirely a test harness though
like CATS or, better, OAF (proposed by Mikeal). There's a lot of
test functions (batch, log, data gathering and stats) that have no
place in a Chandler level scripting language. John, I suggest you
read Mikeal proposal (http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/
Projects/OpenAutomationFramework) first. Keep in mind also that
Mikeal is trying to solve a problem that includes Chandler and Cosmo.
Similarly, I think it's preferable to modify Chandler to eliminate
some of CPIA Script.
What alternative to CPIA scripting do you propose? No scripting at
all? Another script mechanism? Leverage an existing one?
Cheers,
- Philippe
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