[Pbuilder-maint] A bit of experience after having updated some packages to use pbuilder-test testsuite engine.

[Junichi Uekawa]

Hi,


> > 
> >     * Let's modify pbuilder to run test-build tests and (if
> >       possible) also the generic tool and test-install tests. 
> >       These belong, I think, better into pbuilder then piuparts, 
> >       but it might be that piuparts should run them also.
> 
> pbuilder hook is available for those who want to test this framework.

I've been working with this, with a very simplistic set-up of running
multiple shell scripts. There are things that you know beforehand (if
you know the gory details of pbuilder as it is documented).

1. your source code is available in /tmp/buildd/package-version/,
which you can probably match with the wildcard '/tmp/buildd/*/debian/../'

2. your testsuite resides in /tmp/buildd/*/debian/pbuilder-testsuite/*, 
which will be executed with run-parts.

3. previous version of your package will be installed by B92test-pkg
by default, from your default apt sources, and if it fails, test won't progress.

4. within the chroot, B92test-pkg by default does the following:
	your previous version is installed from apt sources
	your previous version is removed
	your new package is installed with dpkg -i
this sequence should be improved, and should probably allow failures



Things that I really want to have after testing a few packages.


1. support for common operations, maybe a shell library is in order?
   For example, I usually want to compile/link/execute a test code to
   test a -dev package. That requires some amount of idiom in plain
   shell code, and I shouldn't have to copy-and-paste code all over
   the place.

2. support for providing source data. Most applications eat data and
   output data. I really want some way to provide data and to say
   what's the expected output.

3. support for X. Some of my packages are command-line console tools,
   but many are actually graphical apps. It would be a plus to have
   some kind of interactive/noninteractive X-based testing.




regards,
	junichi
-- 
dancer@{debian.org,netfort.gr.jp}   Debian Project