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Test-Smoke-1.16_15
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NAME

README - Perl Core Smoke Test Suite

SYNOPSIS

# at 22:25
$ sh smoke.sh [~/perlsmoke/perl-current [smoke.cfg]]

or for the brave and trustworthy (not on Win32/VMS)

$ perl Configure.pl

or use the new wrapper script and its configuration (unixy/Win32)

$ perl configsmoke.pl
$ ./mysmoke.sh

DESCRIPTION

The perl core smoke test suite is a set of scripts and modules that try to run the perl core tests on as many configurations as possible and combine the results into an easy to read report.

The basic cycle looks like:

fetch_sourcetree
foreach $config ( @configurations ) {
    make distclean
    ./Configure $config
    make
    make test (and log failures)
}
create_report()
mail_report()

INSTALLATION

This package doesn't follow the standard Perl installation mantra! Although there is a standard Makefile.PL it will not create an install target in the resulting Makefile. We presume the program will be run from the directory it was extracted in.

Create an empty directory where the perl source tree is to be placed when smoking (e.g. ~/perlsmoke/perl-current).

Create or use a location to put the files needed for smoking (e.g. ~/perlsmoke/smoke), and put all files from the distribution there (exept for the t/ directory). Probably you already did so, because you are reading this file.

Edit smoke.sh and change the PC= definition to reflect the location you just chose in the first step of the initialisation. Theoretically you are now ready to go, just follow the SYNOPSIS to give it a first shot for tonight.

Optionally delete lines from config.sh (or a local copy with a different name) for which you are certain your system doesn't support it (like threading or 64bit configurations)

If something useful happens, do it every night using cron instead of at.

CONFIGURATION

As of v1.16_10 there is more than one way to run and configure the perl core smokesuite.

The old way (Unixy)

Run the Configure.pl script, this will change some values in the smoke.sh shell script and can set your crontab if you want.

Tho old way (MSWin32)

Edit the smokew32.bat batch file and set the right values.

The new (preferred) way (Unixy/MSWin32)

Use the new smokeperl.pl wrapper script that can be configured by running the configsmoke.pl script. These new scripts can handle different configurations for smoking (like different perl-versions).

Win32 users

To make it clear, the perl core smoke suite treats cygwin as a unixy platform and not as true Win32.

We have tried to make this perl core smoke suite transparent for the use with various Win32 C-compilers (MSVC, BCC, GCC) and provided separate files for automation: smokew32.bat and smokew32.cfg please read those before you start.

To sync up with the current perl source-tree you'll need a working rsync (cygwin) and as of v1.16_10 you can use the new synctree.pl script to get snapshots (if you have a working patch program you can even patch your snapshot up to perl-current).

We now include the Mail::Sendmail module to help sending the report to the <daily-build-reports@perl.org> mailinglist.

Slow Systems

It can happen that your system is not able to persue all the tests, either because it is too slow or because some of the configurations are not supported by the system. At first, don't worry, they are detected by the report creation script and shown as such.

After the first run gave you some idea of how long the smoke will run on your system, you can create your own copy of smoke.cfg where you either add new combinations and/or test levels, or delete lines to speed up the run time of smoke.

At the moment there are no guidelines of how to change the configuration best to fit the needs of perl5-porters while still getting as much smoke out of the test as possible, simply because the needs of perl5-porters change over time :)

If the test captures too many cycles of your CPU to continue production work, just kill the "mktest.pl" process and the report will be generated over the results captured untill then.

Availability and references

Distribution

$CPAN/ABELTJE/Test-Smoke-1.16_12.tar.gz
SourceForge project "perl-qa" (depricated)

Mailing lists

Perl general QA: perl-qa@perl.org
Smoke issues:    smokers@perl.org
Smoke reports:   smokers-reports@perl.org
Development:     perl5-porters@perl.org

Archives and web

http://qa.perl.org
http://archives.develooper.com/daily-build@perl.org/ and/or
news://nntp.perl.org/perl.daily-build
http://www.cpan.org

The new smoke_db (by Alain Barbet)

Alain Barbet has put a lot of effort in registering the smoke test reports in a database and build a nice WEB-frontend to view these:

http://www.alianwebserver.com/cgi-bin/smoke_db

COPYRIGHT and LICENCE

Copyright (C) 2001-2002

* H.Merijn Brand
* Abe Timmerman

This suite is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, without consulting the author.

(Future) Co-Authors and or contributors should agree to this before submitting patches.

AUTHOR

The perl core smoke suite is maintained by Abe Timmerman <abeltje@cpan.org>.

H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl> in dialogue and consultation with Michael Schwern <schwern@pobox.com>, the Perl QA pumpkin.

Contributors and/or co-authors:

    Configurations and
      nuts and bolts	Nicholas Clark <nick@plum.flirble.org>
    smoke.sh            Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@cc.hut.fi>
    Portability issues	Will Coleda - IMG <wjc@infomg.com>
    Safety		Richard Soderberg <rs@oregonnet.com>
    Win32/MSC5/dmake	Mattia Barbon <mbarbon@dsi.unive.it>,
			Abe Timmerman <abeltje@cpan.org>
    Cygwin		John Peacock <jpeacock@rowman.com>
    Sharing issues	Blair Zajac <blair@orcaware.com>

and all the people having useful suggestions and nits, starting at YAPC::Europe-2.0.01, where Michael talked me into simplifying my own test-suite. H.Merijn Brand

Misc

As always, have the appropriate amount of fun

TODO

Win32

Windows configurations are not as easy as Unix, but requires makefile fiddling. Windows2000 however supports long names and <i>might</i> just pick up the current way of going around without any hassle.

Initialisation and installation

There has been a change in the installation. Makefile.PL now makes a Makefile without the 'install' target, mainly for the 'test' target. The configuration functionality that used to be in Makefile.PL has now moved to Configure.pl.

Plan

At this date (early September 2002) my plan for Test::Smoke is:

- Releases up to 1.19: refactoring and minor fixes
- VERSION 1.20, a wrapper script for fetching source-tree etc
- VERSION 2.00, an objectified version for easier code maintenance