I'm disappointed in the lack of support for this. David Koes - you
suggested a GSoc on this topic, for example. Anyway, for my part, I will
write up info on adding testcases, but also start to nudge PR submitters
towards including testcases.
Regards,
- Noel
On 3 April 2018 at 13:15, Noel O'Boyle <baoille...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Noted. We will do this. In fact, I commit to doing this whether or not
> this proposal goes ahead.
>
> - Noel
>
> On 3 April 2018 at 11:54, David Hall <li...@cowsandmilk.net> wrote:
>
>> I mostly agree, but I’ll mention the big hurdle I came across the first
>> time I wrote a test for openbabel.
>>
>> Many times, one comes across a bug when using the command line tools,
>> e.g. obabel , so debugging and testing goes through using that program.
>>
>> I think (correct if I’m wrong), the easiest way to go from an obabel
>> command line run to a test is through writing a test in python like those
>> that import functions from testbabel
>>
>> Having a document we can point to that walks them through that process,
>> and shows them that it is quite easy, might be helpful. I know my first few
>> times looking at the test directory, I said “well, I’m not using the python
>> bindings, so I’ll ignore those files and try to figure out the c++ files
>> and how they run tests”, when the reality is that the python files provide
>> the easy route to testing the command line programs.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> > On Apr 3, 2018, at 4:42 AM, Noel O'Boyle <baoille...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > Very few PRs come with test cases. Basically, we just don't know if any
>> of them do what they say, and even if they do, they probably will bit rot
>> at a future date due to other PRs. The irony is that the person who wrote
>> the code clearly tested it (one would assume) - but just didn't check in
>> the test case. I would argue that the majority of developer time spent on
>> Open Babel is on fixing bugs (or bitrotted code) which would never have
>> existed in the first place if a test had been added.
>> >
>> > When I refactored the code to handle implict valence, I relied on the
>> small number of existing tests to help return the code back to its
>> preexisting state. Anything that wasn't tested may (still) not be working.
>> For example, recently David Koes found that my changes broke the PDBQT
>> format.
>> >
>> > In short, I propose that we require a testcase for every PR. There may
>> be special circumstances (huge test files, build system changes), but this
>> would be the general rule. As a lower bar, one could imagine requiring them
>> for every new feature implemented.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > - Noel
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------------
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>>
>>
>
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