[vtk-developers] Regression testing examples

[Francois Bertel]

You can already compile the examples automatically with VTK by setting
BUILD_EXAMPLES to ON. (the compile/linking errors are already caugh
this way). Notably, arkadia is covering compilation and linking of the
examples:
http://www.cdash.org/CDash/viewNotes.php?buildid=492513


On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:27 PM, David Doria <daviddoria+vtk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The examples section of the wiki is getting very large
> (http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/VTK_Examples). I have been working to get
> them all to meet VTK coding guidelines and I believe they are now at
> that point. It would be very helpful if these could maintained in a
> non-wiki format. First, operations like 'grep' become usable. It is
> sometimes hard to find things in big folders full of code without grep
> - forget about it on a wiki! Second, the examples are not regression
> tested so as the interfaces to the library evolve, the examples will
> start to degrade and become non-compilable.
>
> Ken mentioned that we should put these in the testing directory. I
> think that the purpose of the tests is to ensure that OTHER code
> works. The purpose of testing the examples is to make sure that the
> examples themselves still work. This is very different. Also (from my
> experience), people typically think of a testing directory as a
> cryptic jungle of comment-less code where an examples directory should
> be a place to go to learn how to use things. I don't think it is
> necessary to write tests for the examples, but ensuring they compile
> and link is much better than letting them rot on a webpage.
>
> I propose doing one of two thigns:
> a) Put the examples in the existing VTK/Examples directory
>
> b) Make the examples a separate repository (like VTKData) so that
> users don't need to download the many examples unless they actually
> want them.
>
> In both cases, we would set up dummy tests to report only compilation
> and linking errors.
>
> At some point a web interface could be provided, but I think the first
> step is to get them into a position to be regression tested.
>
> What do you think? I've been talking about this for a while now, but
> it is getting big enough to actually be tough to maintain so it would
> be nice to start the transition. As I move them to their new home, it
> would be a good time to review them to ensure the necessary
> comments/images are in place to make them as useful/clear as possible.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
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