[OpenAFS-devel] status of src/tests

[Jeffrey Hutzelman]

On Friday, June 01, 2007 12:41:15 PM +0200 Alberto Mancini 
<mancini@math.unifi.it> wrote:

> Actually, I think that ``dumptool'' should not be in src/tests directory
> too.
>
> If someone is doing some work in the ``tests'' directory
> could be a good idea to change this.
>
> I have no idea of the ``meaning'' of most of the files in
> the tests dir but i can help in moving/testing dumptool.
>
> There is any open issue with dumptool ?

Oh, dear.  There's a copy of dumptool in there?  That's probably as 
out-of-date as the copy of my volume dump utilities, the latest version of 
which can be found in /afs/grand.central.org/software/dumpscan.

I don't think either of those tools, or various others, really belong in 
the OpenAFS distribution.  OpenAFS should concentrate on being a 
filesystem, not on incorporating into its distribution every tool someone 
might want to use with it.

That said, it's fine for the tests to include snapshots or stripped-down 
versions of tools _for use in the tests_.  This is considerably more 
manageable than expecting someone to download and build various other 
packages in order to make the tests work.  It's also useful because tests 
often depend on the precise output of things, and can fail in strange ways 
when the "wrong" versions of tools are used.  So, leave it in if it's being 
used, but consider whether it's possible to construct tests that use 
dumptool _or_ the dumpscan tools, instead of both.


It is probably the case that dumptool provides functionality not currently 
available from the dumpscan tools and libraries.  I would be glad to accept 
patches to correct this situation.

-- Jeff