[debhelper-devel] dh_auto_test - Integration with CTest/CDash

[Kyle Edwards]

Hello all,

I'm currently working on a Debian package for the upcoming VTK 9, and as 
part of this endeavor, I'm setting up nightly .deb builds and nightly 
testing on Debian Sid. One thing that I'd like to be able to do is 
combine these into one step: the same process that builds the nightly 
.debs also submits the dh_auto_test results to our CDash server. (CDash 
is a companion product of CTest - it is a dashboard server which hosts 
the results of nightly tests from test machines which choose to submit 
their results.)

A little bit of background: Debhelper's existing dh_auto_test rule for 
the CMake buildsystem simply runs "make test" (or, as of 11.2, "ninja 
test" - thanks again Niels!) This runs CTest (a subcomponent of CMake), 
which runs the tests that have been built, but it doesn't submit the 
results anywhere. Meanwhile, CDash has the concept of a "dashboard 
script", which does everything in one go - git fetch, configure, build, 
and test.

What I would like to have is the option to submit the results of 
dh_auto_test to CDash, though certainly not a requirement to do so. Here 
are some of the challenges I see:

1. Deciding how much of this process to leave to the CTest dashboard 
script and how much to leave to the Debian packaging system.
2. The dashboard script also has site-local settings, which could 
potentially be challenging to pass to the builder, especially if the 
builder is sbuild.

I'm still a bit of a beginner on Debian packaging. Is it possible (and 
practical) to separate out the build steps? For now I've just been 
running "gbp buildpackage", which does everything at once, but if the 
build steps can be run separately, I may be able to write a dashboard 
script which executes these steps.

Any other ideas would be appreciated.

Kyle