mutter/tests
Robert Bragg bbcbece6c9 tests: Improve thoroughness and reporting of make test
This patch reworks our conformance testing framework because it seems
that glib's gtesting framework isn't really well suited to our use case.
For example we weren't able to test windows builds given the way we
were using it and also for each test we'd like to repeat the test
with several different environments so we can test important driver and
feature combinations.

This patch instead switches away to a simplified but custom approach for
running our unit tests. We hope that having a more bespoke setup will
enable us to easily extend it to focus on the details important to us.

Notable changes with this new approach are:

We can now run 'make test' for our mingw windows builds.

We've got rid of all the test-*report* make rules and we're just left
with 'make test'

'make test' now runs each test several times with different driver and
feature combinations checking the result for each run. 'make test' will
then output a concise table of all of the results.

The combinations tested are:
- OpenGL Fixed Function
- OpenGL ARBfp
- OpenGL GLSL
- OpenGL No NPOT texture support
- OpenGLES 2.0
- OpenGLES 2.0 No NPOT texture support

Reviewed-by: Neil Roberts <neil@linux.intel.com>
2012-02-24 14:42:31 +00:00
..
conform tests: Improve thoroughness and reporting of make test 2012-02-24 14:42:31 +00:00
data Starts porting Cogl conformance tests from Clutter 2011-09-08 15:48:07 +01:00
Makefile.am tests: Improve thoroughness and reporting of make test 2012-02-24 14:42:31 +00:00
README Starts porting Cogl conformance tests from Clutter 2011-09-08 15:48:07 +01:00

Outline of test categories:

The conform/ tests:
-------------------
These tests should be non-interactive unit-tests that verify a single
feature is behaving as documented. See conform/ADDING_NEW_TESTS for more
details.

Although it may seem a bit awkward; all the tests are built into a
single binary because it makes building the tests *much* faster by avoiding
lots of linking.

Each test has a wrapper script generated though so running the individual tests
should be convenient enough. Running the wrapper script will also print out for
convenience how you could run the test under gdb or valgrind like this for
example:

  NOTE: For debugging purposes, you can run this single test as follows:
  $ libtool --mode=execute \
            gdb --eval-command="b test_cogl_depth_test" \
            --args ./test-conformance -p /conform/cogl/test_cogl_depth_test
  or:
  $ env G_SLICE=always-malloc \
    libtool --mode=execute \
            valgrind ./test-conformance -p /conform/cogl/test_cogl_depth_test

By default the conformance tests are run offscreen. This makes the tests run
much faster and they also don't interfere with other work you may want to do by
constantly stealing focus. CoglOnscreen framebuffers obviously don't get tested
this way so it's important that the tests also get run onscreen every once in a
while, especially if changes are being made to CoglFramebuffer related code.
Onscreen testing can be enabled by setting COGL_TEST_ONSCREEN=1 in your
environment.

The micro-bench/ tests:
-----------------------
These should be focused performance tests, ideally testing a
single metric. Please never forget that these tests are synthetic and if you
are using them then you understand what metric is being tested. They probably
don't reflect any real world application loads and the intention is that you
use these tests once you have already determined the crux of your problem and
need focused feedback that your changes are indeed improving matters. There is
no exit status requirements for these tests, but they should give clear
feedback as to their performance. If the framerate is the feedback metric, then
the test should forcibly enable FPS debugging.

The data/ directory:
--------------------
This contains optional data (like images) that can be referenced by a test.


Misc notes:
-----------
• All tests should ideally include a detailed description in the source
explaining exactly what the test is for, how the test was designed to work,
and possibly a rationale for the approach taken for testing.

• When running tests under Valgrind, you should follow the instructions
available here:

        http://live.gnome.org/Valgrind

and also use the suppression file available inside the data/ directory.