[vtk-developers] Regression testing examples

[David Cole]

The VTK/Examples folder is built on some of the dashboard submissions.
Looking for BUILD_EXAMPLES ON and vtk in the DashboardScripts folder shows
where they might be being built (for scripts that are still running, some of
these will be stale, old scripts that don't run anymore......)

davidcole at damogran : DashboardScripts
$ grep BUILD_EXAMPLES * | grep vtk | grep ON
Eternia_vtk_gcc_exp.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
amber2_vtk_valgrind.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
beleriand_vtk_volumepro_nmake71.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
dash11_vtk_vs71.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
dash17_vtkSNL_gcc40.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
dash1_vtk_vs71.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
dash20_vtk_vs9_exp.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
dash5_vtkSNLstatic_gcc.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
destiny_vtk_aCC-static.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
destiny_vtk_aCC.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
faraway_vtk_coverage.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
faraway_vtk_valgrind.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
hythloth_vtk_gcc-4.1.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
krondor_vtkcarbon_gcc.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
krondor_vtkcocoa_gcc.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
midworld_vtk_carbon_gcc.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
midworld_vtk_cocoa_gcc.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
morva_vtk_vs71.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
shannara_vtk_CC.cmake:BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON


You should be able to build VTK/Examples/CMakeLists.txt as an independent
top level project, point it to VTK_DIR for a build or install tree of VTK
and then get all the examples that "make sense" for the current platform and
build of VTK.

So the examples have the very huge potential to stay as fresh as the rest of
VTK as long as we have enough dashboard machines that turn on BUILD_EXAMPLES
in their scripts.

I don't think you should disconnect the examples are make them separate
repository. They totally belong in the VTK repository itself -- otherwise,
you will have extra work at branch time. And do examples for VTK 5.6 build
against 5.4 and 5.2... etc etc etc -- no need to introduce yet another way
to explode things combinatorially.... (It does not save people that much
time or space to avoid 1000 source files in a source control system...)


HTH,
David Cole



On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:27 PM, David Doria
<daviddoria+vtk at gmail.com<daviddoria%2Bvtk 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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