[Paraview-developers] [HEADSUP] New testing on its way

[Ben Boeckel]

Hi,

I've just landed a branch in next which makes the VTK testing
infrastructure viable for ParaView as well. What does this mean? First,
no more ParaViewData repository. Second, Gerrit will become necessary
for updating baseline images. Basically, ExternalData is now used and
VTK will download the data that is necessary automatically. No more
"oops, ParaViewData was out of date" issues when running the test suite
:) .

Since ParaView is not as ordered as VTK in its data use and the same
data file tends to get used all over the place, tests will need to
"manually" declare which files are necessary. There are a few helper
function in CMake for this:

    paraview_test_load_data
    paraview_test_load_data_dirs
    paraview_test_load_baselines
    paraview_test_load_baselines_dirs

All of them take as the first argument the data target to use (the
default is accessed with the empty string) followed by a list of files
to use. The '_dirs' variants take directory names. All paths should be
given relative to "${ParaView_SOURCE_DIR}/Testing/Data". Examples:

    paraview_test_load_data(""
      can.ex2
      comb.q)
    paraview_test_load_data_dirs(""
      datadir)

Baselines are relative to the
"${ParaView_SOURCE_DIR}/Testing/Data/Baselines" directory. Adding or
updating baselines should follow the VTK instructions[1].

If you're not using the default target (say, for a plugin), add the
following call as well:

    paraview_test_load_data(MyTarget
      mydatafile.vtk)
    paraview_test_data_target(MyTarget)

For adding new tests, just use the 'paraview_add_test_*' rather than
'vtk_add_test_*' to use pvpython, ParaView's data directories, etc. I've
posted a message to the VTK developers list with the changes, so look
there for how to use the new testing functions.

--Ben

[1]http://www.vtk.org/Wiki/VTK/Git/Develop/Data#Add_Data