[gs-devel] Packaging test files with Ghostscript

[Ray Johnston]

Peter,

"L. Peter Deutsch" wrote:
> 
> Currently, the standard Ghostscript release includes about a dozen example
> files, but it does not include any files intended specifically for testing
> (regression or otherwise).

The only two that I know of that were intended to be test files are
annots.pdf and image-qa.ps.

>  We (Aladdin, Artifex, and artofcode) have a
> large number of files that we use for testing, many of which are freely
> redistributable.

A small fraction of the files that we use for regression testing are freely
distributable. The PostScript files that we use are the Genoa PS LL3 FTS
(clearly we can't distribute those) and the PDF files approx. 33 are ones
that came in from bug-gs.

> It would clearly be helpful to Ghostscript developers at large if those
> files were made available.

see above. I am not sure how useful they would be to the developers outside
Artifex since most of the files we have that we CAN distribute were not
written to be test files, but rather were just files that had some type
of problem with some earlier version of Ghostscript.

>  What do you think should be done about this?
> 
>         Nothing?  (After all, these files are used by the nightly regression
>         test, so they are already contributing most of their value to the
>         reliability of the Ghostscript HEAD branch.)

I think that this is probably the best w.r.t. distribution of files.

We may want to allow users to do a 'test run' of the regression with certain
patches applied. I'm not sure how we would allocate server load in the
event that this becomes popular. Also we might allow users (over the web)
to access the two versions of the image files for regression differences.
The images of the Genoa test suite that we generate are not protected, just
the PostScript sources. Some of the PDF files from customer may be restricted
in the sense that we can't distribute the images or the PDF files, but most
may be OK. It wouldn't take too much to ask the customers.

If we do ask customers about the files they've sent, and get approval to
distribute a significant fraction of them, then at that point we could
post them on FTP.

>         Make them available separately by FTP?

I see little value in CVS since the files will almost all be binary (-kb)
and not subject to revision, thus won't need tracking. FTP seems to be
the better distribution method (if we get to the point where we distribute
files).
 
>         Make them available on the Ghostscript CVS, but don't bundle them in
>         the release?  (They add up to hundreds of megabytes)?
> 
>         Set up a separate CVS repository for them?  (That way, all
>         developers can easily contribute to them.)

We would have to verify distribution rights and copyright etc. on files added
for distribution, so I don't think that we would want developers adding
files without care. For developers with account privelges, then FTP is just
as easy as CVS (or easier).
 
>         Something else?  What?
> 
> The reason this came up is that I'm just finishing a special test file for
> exercising some changes I'm making in pdfwrite, and it occurred to me that I
> have dozens of small specialized test files of this kind and would like to
> make them available.

Specially written test files (similar to image-qa.ps or annots.pdf) are a
different category and there is no reason not to add them to either lib,
or examples (or better yet a new directory that indicates the purpose, like
'testfiles'). I vote for a new directory named appropriately and we would
move the two existing test files into it. Unless I misunderstand the type
of files that you have, they probably are not very large and won't "bloat"
the distribution much, if any.

Regards,
Ray
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