On 3/7/07, Andy Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 7 Mar 2007, at 13:48, Eric Hacker wrote:
> I think it was Ovid who recently called it the Test Anything Protocol.
> If really what is desired, then some additional complexity is
> required.
Sure - I'm completely in favour of being able to test anything and
capture everything that might be useful. But if we want more nuanced
exit information (did the test even run? did a connection fail?) we
could still capture that without having to massage everything into
HTTP style status codes.
Not massage, leverage. :)
I think this is a situation where you want a code rather than just
using text. The conciseness eases automatic interpretation and assures
clarity of what was said.
If so, then how many codes? Probably not as many as hundreds.
Best to group codes so that similar codes are easily identified.
Best not to do this using some cool binary or hex code which pushes
the calculation to people rather than the big calculator/space heater.
So lets say that the codes will be 3 digits, so we'll have enough room
to grow for unforseen needs.
The first digit can be a grouping by success/failure.
They'll be another status group for situations where the test didn't
run at all, because of an operation issue.
Might want a status group for keepalive info and whatnot on long
tests. Sure the Harness might not ever get them, but why have some
entirely different way of communication this type of status.
I'm not /strongly/ opposed to your proposal - just trying to
understand what it might do that we can't do more simply by other means.
So then if I'm not too far off base with the above, then to use
something different than HTTP::Status type codes would be reinventing.
1xx Info
2xx Success
3xx Redirect, probably not applicable to testing
4xx Failure
5xx Server/System Error
Then, if I'm writing a test engine with an http interface for running
tests, little or no translation is necessary. :)
