For a while now I’ve been using subunit as part of my regular development workflow. I would pipe test results to a file, use subunit to report on failures from that file, and be able to inspect all the failures at my leisure without rerunning tests or copy and pasting from far back in my history.

However this is a bit adhoc, and its not trivial to get good pipelines together – while its not hard, its not obvious either. And commands like tee are less readily available for Windows users.

So during my holidays I started a small project to automate this workflow. I didn’t get all that much done due to a combination of travel and coming down with a nasty bug near the end of my holidays – which I’m now recovering from. Yay health returning + medicines. If only we had medichines .

However, I managed to get a reasonable first release out the door this evening. Grab it from launchpad or pypi.

Testrepository has a few deps – all listed in INSTALL.txt. Folk on Ubuntu Lucid should be able to just apt-get them all (sudo apt-get install subunit will be enough to run testrepository). If you’re not on Lucid you can grab the debs manually, or use the subunit ppa (sudo add-apt-repository ppa:subunit), though I’ve noticed just today that that karmic subunit build there only works with python 2.5, not the default of 2.6 – I will fix that at some point.

Using Testrepository is easy if you are developing python code:

$ testr init
$ python -m subunit.run project.tests.test_suite | testr load
id: 0 tests: 114

This will report any failures that occur. To see them again:

$ testr last
id: 0 tests: 114

The actual subunit streams are stored in .testrepository in sequentially numbered files (for now at least). So its very easy to get at them (for instance, subunit-stats < .testrepository/12).

If you are not using python, you can still use subunit easily if you are using shunit, ‘check’ or ‘cppunit’. subunit ships with bindings for shunit and cppunit, and check uses libsubunit with the CK_SUBUNIT output mode. TAP users can use tap2subunit to get a subunit stream from a TAP based testsuite.

It’s still early days but I’m finding this much nicer than the adhoc subunit management I was doing before.

Evolution recently moved to a sqlite summary db rather than a custom summary db implementation. Its great to see such reuse of code.

However, it’s not really a complete transition yet as I’ve had cause to find out today. I’ve blogged before about performance with the sqlite summary sqlite database. Today I was greet with a crash-on-startup bug which happily has a patch upstream already. Before I looked in the bug tracker though, I did some house cleaning.

I started with a 900MB folders.db. Doing a vacuum on the db dropped that to 300MB. It doesn’t appear to be something that evolution does itself. Firefox too appears to lack an automatic vacuum. sqlite is an embedded database, and its wonderful at doing that, but its not as install-and-forget as (say) PostgreSQL which does autovacuum. So an additional tip is vacuum your folders, e.g. with http://www.gnome.org/~sragavan/evolution-rebuild-summarydb, a helper script that will run vacuum on all your account summary db’s. Note that it *does not rebuild*, it solely vacuums, and as such does not add or delete (modulo bugs in sqlite) data to the summary database.

After the housecleaning, I checked that the sqlite database was in good condition:

sqlite3 folders.db
pragma integrity_check;

This returned a number of indexing issues, so I reindexed:

reindex;

Evolution now starts up and crashes in a fraction of a second - a big improvement. Finally, I started looking at the evolution code as I now was fairly confident it was a bug - it was in a sqlite callback function - and the column the function extracts data from (flags) is missing a NOT NULL constraint, but the code doesn't check for NULL - boom. From there to finding the bug report and existing patch was trivial.

And this is where my comment on reliability turns up: Evolution doesn't anticipate NULL flag values in its code, so why does it insert them into the database at all ? I suspect its due to some aspect of the incremental conversion to using sqlite summaries. More concerning for me is the possibility that there are many other such crash bugs lurking in the new sqlite based code.

There are possibly some clues as to the excessive table scans done by evolution in the use of a flags bitset rather than separate columns, but I haven't looked close enough to really say.

the emperor has new clothes

bzr has just changed the base class for its test suite from ‘unittest.TestCase’ to ‘testtools.TestCase’. This change has cleaned up a bunch of test logic, deleted a significant amount of code (much of which was redundant with Python unittest) and added some useful and important features.

bzr  has only been able to make this change due to testtools expanding its mission from a simple ‘aggregation of proven unittest extensions’ into one where new extensions that *make unittest more extensible*. My deepest thanks to Jonathan for permitting me to use testtools as the vehicle to put these extension-enabling-extensions (and for his patience in reviewing said changes!).

The change was pretty easy: The bulk of the changes were in bzrlib.tests and bzrlib.tests.test_selftest. I chose to cleanup an ugly API at the same time which added a little scattershot across a number of tests. And there are more changes that can be done to take better advantage of testtools – the amount of deleted and cleaned up code isn’t complete. Even so, its a pretty clear win:

18 files changed, 228 insertions(+), 496 deletions(-)

What went?

bzr had an implementation of TestCase.run. This function is the main workhorse of Python’s unittest module, and yet sadly it has to be replaced to change the exceptions that can be raised(to signal new outcomes), or to improve on test cleanup. Testtools provides an API to permit registering new exception types and handlers for them. Like python 2.7 testtools also provides the TestCase.addCleanup API, and these two things combined mean that bzr no longer needs to reimplement the run method.

For expected failures, bzr uses a helper method TestCase.expectFailure to perform an existing assertion and convert the test into an expected failure if that assertion does not trigger. This was another feature testtools already provides and thus got deleted.

All the custom code for skipping and expected failures got deleted, and the other outcomes bzr uses turned into extensions (as per the run discussion above).

In bzr test cases generate a log (because bzr generates a log) and previously the TestResult in bzrlib inspected each test that had been executed to extract the log. This was made simpler by using the details API that testtools provides (see testtools.TestCase.addDetail), which permits tests to add arbitrary data in a semi-structured fashion. This is supported by subunit and a long standing bug with bzr selftest --parallel was fixed as a result – logs from tests run in other processes are now carried across the process barrier intact and are presented cleanly.

Some other minor cleanups are in unittest compatibility code, where bzr would degrade gracefully with unittest runners, and testtools provides such logic comprehensively, so all that got deleted too.

Whats new?

I think the most significant new facility that testtools offers bzrlib is assertThat. This assertion is inspired by the very nice assertThat in JUnit (which has changed substantially since Python’s unittest was written based on it). This assertion separates the two concerns of ‘raise an exception’ and ‘decide if an exception should be raised’. The separation allows for better reuse of custom checking code, because it permits composition in a cleaner way than extra assertion methods permit. Testtools does not include many matchers as yet, but matchers are easy to write, and if one were to write a small adapter to the hamcrest library, there are a bunch of ready made matchers there (though they have a very Java feel – such as is not meaning is – which is why Testtools did not use that library).

Secondly, the addDetail API referenced above, in combination with testtools.TestCase.addOnException will permit capturing the entire working area when a test fails, something that developers currently have to fiddle about with breakpoints to achieve. This hasn’t been done, but is a straight forward patch I hope to do in the new year.

Lastly, Testtools offers testtools.TestCase.getUniqueInteger and testtools.TestCase.getUniqueString, which are not as yet used in bzr tests, but we may start using them soon.

Beyond that, the other features of testtools are already present in bzrlib, and we simply need to find and delete more duplicated code.

Recently I’ve been working on the Python unittest API in my spare time, with a long term goal of making it possible to safely and sensibly glue many different plugins together into the core.

Two important components of that goal are being able to extend the data included in a test result, and being able to change how a test is run (such as adding new exceptions that should be treated as specific outcomes – python unittest uses exceptions to signal outcomes).

In testtools 0.9.2 we have an answer to both those issues. I’m really happy with the data included in outcomes API, ‘TestCase.addDetail’. The API for extending outcomes works, but only addresses part of that issue for now.

Subunit 0.0.4, which is available for older Ubuntu releases in the Subunit releases PPA now, and mostly built on Debian (so it will propogate through to Lucid in due course) has support for the addDetail API. Subunit now depends on testtools, reducing the non-protocol related code and generally making things simpler.

Using those two together, bzr’s parallelised test suite has been improved as well, allowing it to include the log file for tests run in separate processes (previously it was silently discarded). The branch to do this will be merged soon, its just waiting on some sysadmin love to get these new versions into its merge-test environment. This change also provides complete capturing of the log when users want to supply a subunit log containing failed tests. The python code to do this is pretty simple:

def setUp(self):
    super(TestCase, self).setUp()
    self.addDetail("log", content.Content(content.ContentType("text", "plain",
        {"charset": "utf8"}), lambda:[self._get_log(keep_log_file=True)]))

I’ve made a couple of point releases to python-junitxml recently, fixing some minor bugs. I need to figure out how to add the extra data that addDetails permits  to the xml output. I suspect its a strict superset and so I’ll have to filter stuff down. If anyone knows about similar extensions done to junit’s XML format before, please leave a comment

Bzr build-deb is very nice, but it can be very tricky to get started. I recently did a fresh debianisation of a project that is in bzr upstream, and I thought I’d record the recipe to make it work (at least until the various bugs making it hard re fixed).

Assuming that the upstream uses bzr, it goes like this:

1. Start with a branch that is close to the code you want to Debianise. E.g. if the release was off trunk, 3 commits back: bzr branch trunk -r -3 debian
2. Debianise as normal: put the tarball with the right name in the parent dir,  add a debian directory and fiddle until you build a package you’re happy with. Don’t commit while doing this.
3. Build a source package- debuild -S, or bzr builddeb -S
4. Revert your changes – bzr revert.
5. Import the dsc – bzr import-dsc ../*.dsc
6. Now, you may find that some dot files, such as .bzrignore have been discarded inappropriately (there is a bug open on this). If that happened, keep going. Otherwise, you’re done: you can now use merge-upstream on future upstream releases, and debcommit etc.
7. bzr uncommit
8. bzr revert .bzrignore (and any other files that you want to get back)
9. debcommit
10. All done, see point  6 for details.

Hope-this-helps

Software comes in many shapes and styles. One of the problems the author of software faces is distributing it to their users.

As distributors we should not discourage upstreams that wish to generate binary packages themselves, rather we should cooperate with them, and ideally they will end up maintaining their stable release packages in our distributions. Currently the Debian and Ubuntu communities have a tendancy to actively discourage this by objecting when an upstream software author includes a debian/ directory in their shipped code.  I don’t know if Redhat or Suse have similar concerns, but for the dpkg toolchain, the presence of an upstream debian directory can cause toolchain issues.

In this blog post, I hope to make a case that we should consider the toolchain issues bugs rather than just-the-way-it-is, or even features.

To start at the beginning, consider the difficulty of installing software: the harder it is to install a piece of software, the more important having it has to be for a user to jump through hoops to install it.

Thus projects which care about users will make it easy to install – and there is a spectrum of ease. At one end,

checkout from version control, install various build dependencies like autoconf, gcc and so on

through to

download and run this installer

Now, where some software authors get lucky, is when someone else makes it easy to install their software, they make binary packages, so that users can simply do

apt-get install product

Now some platforms like MacOSX and Microsoft Windows really do need an installer, but in the Unix world we generally have packaging systems that can track interdependencies between libraries, download needed dependencies automatically, perform uninstalls and so on. Binary packaging in a Linux distribution has numerous benefits including better management of security updates (because a binary package can sensibly use shared libraries that are not part of the LSB).

So given the above, its no surprise to me to see the following sort of discussion on #ubuntu-motu:

1. upstream> Hi, I want to package product.
2. developer> Hi, you should start by reading the packaging guide
3. (upstream is understandably daunted – the packaging guide is a substantial amount of information, but only a small fraction is needed to package any one product.)

or (less usefully)

1. upstream> Hi, I want to package product.
2. developer> If you want to contribute, you should start with existing bugs
3. upstream> But I want to package product.

Another conversation, which I think is very closely related is

1. developer> Argh, product has a debian dir, why do they do this to me?!

The reasons for this should be pretty obvious at this point:

• Folk want to make their product easy to install and are not themselves DD’s, DM’s or MOTU’s.
• So they package it privately – such as in a PPA, or their own archive.
• When they package it, they naturally put the packaging rules in their source tree.

Now, why should we encourage this, rather than ask the upstream to delete their debian directory?

Because it lets us, distributors, share the packaging effort with the upstream.

Upstreams that are making packages will likely be doing this for betas, or even daily builds. As such they will find issues related to new binaries, libraries and so on well in advance of their actual release. And if we are building on their efforts, rather than discarding them, we can spend less time repeating what they did and more packaging other things.

We can also encourage the upstream to become a maintainer in the distro and do their own uploads: many upstreams will come to this on their own, but by working with them as they take their early steps we can make this more likely and an easier path.

The Australian government 2.0 taskforce has an initiative to make data available for public remixing and use: after all its public property anyway, right? They have even run a mashup competition.

Notably missing from the excellent collection of data that has been opened is the NSW Transport and Infrastructure dataset for public transport in NSW. There is a similar dataset for the Northern Territory in the mashup transport section.

The NT dataset is under the fantastic cc-by licence. You can write an iphone app with this, a journey planner that you can cart with you while disconnected; a ‘find the closest bus I can walk to’ tool, or – well let the imagination run wild.

The NSW dataset is under a heavily restrictive license. Its so restrictive I’m not sure its feasible to write an open source tool using its data.

The meta-issue is that NSW T&I department wants control over the applications built with this data. This adds a tremendous chilling effect on potential uses of the data: the department will have to approve, with a long lead time, every use of the data, and get to tell the ‘application developer’ what to changes to make to their application.

I strongly doubt that a simple remixing of the data (e.g. with weather reports to prefer buses on very wet day) would be permitted, as it would allow other users to just read the remix and get the original data /without entering into a license agreement/.

I’m sure there is some unstated risk of openess, or benefit of control, that is shaping this problematic approach. Whatever the cause, its not open at all.

Given that the overall approach is fundamentally flawed, a blow by blow analysis of the custom license isn’t particularly useful, however I thought I would pick some highlights out to save folk the trouble

1. The dataset is behind a username/password wall [that you cannot share with others].
2. Licensees may not be private – everyone must know you’re using the data.
3. You must link to the 131500.com.au website
4. You may not charge users for an app that has to be redeveloped if the dataset changes shape
5. Any application written to use the dataset must be given to the department 30 days before release to the public.
6. The department gets to ’suggest changes’ to any announcement related to the developers app, the license agreement or the dataset.
7. The dataset is embargoed – you cannot share it with others.
8. The use of the dataset has to be logged and reported.
9. There is a restraint of use in there as well – related to Inappropriate and Offensive Material. It wouldn’t affect me, but sheese, given all the other restraints its hardly needed.

There are more gems in the details, but in short:

The department will control what, where, when and how (the data is accessed, the application’s functionality/appearance, how it was used). Hell, the 30 day requirement alone makes for slow delivery of whatever someone wants to build.

I really hope this can be improved on.

Subunit 0.0.3 should be a great little release. Its not ready yet, but some key things have been done.

Firstly, its been relicensed under BSD/Apache version 2. This makes using Subunit with other test frameworks much easier, as those frameworks tend to be permissive licenses such as the LGPL, BSD or Apache. Thanks go out to the contributors to Subunit who made this process very painless.

Secondly, the C client code is getting a few small touch ups, probably not enough to reach complete feature parity with the Python reporter.

Thirdly, the CPPUnit patch that Subunit has carried for ages has been turned into a small library built by Subunit, so you’ll be able to just install that into an existing CPPUnit environment without rebuilding CPPUnit.

Lastly, but most importantly it will have hopefully the last major protocol change (still backwards compatible!) needed for 1.0 – the ability to attach fairly arbitrary debug data in an outcome (things like ’stdout’, ’stderr’, ‘a log file X’ and so forth). This will be used via an experimental object protocol – the one I proposed on the Testing In Python list.

I should get the protocol changes done on the flight to Montreal tomorrow, which would be a great way for me to get my mind fully focused on testing for the sprint next week.

So, for ages now I’ve been saying that unittest is, at its core, pretty sound. I incited a talk to this effect.

I have a vision; I dream of a python testing library that:

1. Is in the python core
2. Is simple
3. Is extensible
4. Has tests take care of testing
5. Has results take care of reporting
6. Aids communication from test to test reader

Hopefully those are pretty modest and agreeable things to want.

However we don’t have this: nose is lovely but not in the core [and is a moderately complex API]. py.test is also not in the core, and has previously tripped my too-much-magic alerts. I must admit to not having checked if this is fixed yet. unittest itself is in the core but has some cruft which we should clean up, but more importantly is not extensible enough, which leads to extensions such as the zope testrunner having to muddy the waters between testing and reporting.

The point “Aids communication from test to test reader” is worth expanding on: automated testing is something that doesn’t need observation…until the unexpected happens. At that point some poor schmuck such as you or I ends up trying to guess what went wrong. The more data that we gather and communicate about the event, the greater the chance it can be corrected without needing a repeat run under a debugger, or worse, single stepping through the code.

There is a problem with ‘assertFoo’ methods in unittest, something that I’m not going to cram into this blog post. I will say, if you find the tendency of such methods to crawl to the base class frustrating, that you should look at hamcrest – it and similar things have been very successful in the Java unit testing world; we can learn from them.

Going back to my vision, we need to make unittest more powerfully extensible to allow projects like nose to do all the cool things they want to while still being unittest compatible. I don’t mean that nose can’t run unittest tests; I mean that unittest can’t run nose tests: nose has had to expand the contract, not simply add implementations that do more.

To that end I have a number of bugs which I need to file. Solving them piecemeal will create a fractured API – particularly if this is done over more than one release. So I am planning on prototyping in other projects, discussing like mad on the testing-in-python list, and when it all starts to come together writing up a PEP.

The bugs I have are:

1. streams nicely: countTestCases must die/be made optional. This function is inherently incompatible with generative tests or anything beyond the simplest lightweight environments
2. no way to wrap code around a single test. This would permit profiling, debugging, tracing, and I’m sure other things more cleanly.  (At the moment, one must ‘turn on’ the profiler in startTestCase, and turn it off in stopTestCase. This is much more awkward than simply being in the call stack). Some care will be needed here, particularly for generative tests.
3. code that isn’t part of the implementation in the core needs to be able to work with the reporting code; allowing an optionally wider API permits extensions to be debuggable. This needs thought: do we allow direct access to TestResults? Do we come up with some added level of indirection and ‘events’? I don’t know.
4. More data than just the backtrace needs to be included when an outcome is reporter. I’ve started a discussion on the testing in python list about this. I’m proposing that we use a dict of named content objects, and use the HTTP content-type abstraction to make the content objects introspectable and reliably handleable without tying the unittest object protocol to any given wire format – loose coupling is good!
5. The way we signal outcomes between TestCase and TestResult – the addFailure etc methods is concerning: there are many grades of outcome that users of the framework may usefully wish to represent; in fact there are more than we probably want to put in the core. Finding a way to decouple the intent of a particular outcome from how its signalled would allow users more control while still being able to use the core framework. One particular issue in this area is that its possible with the current API to have a single test object succeed multiple times. Or fail (addFailure) then succeed (addSuccess). This causes no end of confusion, as test counts can mismatch failure counts, and so on.

I’ve got some ideas about these bugs, but I’m approaching a kiloword already, and I hope this post has enough to provoke some serious thought about how we can fix these 5 bugs, compatibly, and end up with a significantly better unittest module. We’ll have been sucessful if projects like Trial, nose and the zope testrunner are able to remove all their code that duplicates standard library functionality or otherwise worksaround these bugs, and can instead focus on adding the specific test support needed by their environments (in the Trial and zope cases), or on UI and plug-n-play (for nose).

Got some of my packaging backlog sorted out:

• bicyclerepairman updated for the vim policy (which means it works again!)
• python-testtools (a simple migration of the package to Debian)
• subunit 0.0.2 released upstream and packaged for Debian.
• testresources 0.2 ->  Debian.

And a small memo-to-self: On all new machines, echo ” filetype plugin on” >> ~/.vimrc