Re: [Koha-devel] interest in improving automated tests with a testing database

[Henri-Damien LAURENT]

Andrew Moore a écrit :
> Hi Koha developers -
>
> I have caught some of you on IRC and such, but for the rest of you,
> I'm a new developer at LibLime working on Koha.
>
> I'm interested in improving the automated test suite a little bit, and
> I'm hoping to get some feedback from any interested developers and
> users. There are some database specific tests in the t/db_dependent
> directory, but I think they can be improved quite a bit. I'll lay out
> what I'm picturing, and please let me know if you picture a different
> plan, or have any ways to improve this one.
>
> I'd like to have a 'make' target similar to 'make test' that would
> build a nearly empty, skeleton database that we could run some
> automated tests against. Since this would not be the same database
> that live data is held in, we wouldn't have to worry about deleting or
> overwriting any useful data. The testing could insert example data and
> data known to trigger past bugs to ensure that they don't recur. I
> don't imagine making this a standard part of 'make test', at least at
> first, since I don't imagine that all end users want to have a second
> database built just to test against. I think it could be immensely
> useful for us developers, though, right away.
>
> One useful way I've seen this done in the past is trough the use of
> the Test::Class perl module. It's similar to the xUnit framework (or
> jUnit or nUnit) in that it lets you run a bit of code before and after
> each test to set up the environment (the test fixture). That way, you
> can ensure that the database looks clean between when different pieces
> of the test suite runs so that one test script doesn't interfere with
> another. It also lets your test scripts inherit from each other so
> that similar test scripts can share the same code to set up their
> fixtures.
>
> I have a small working prototype of this, but before I get much
> further, I want to ask if you have any suggestions or advice for this.
> Please let me know if this sounds like something that would be useful
> to you, and if there's anything I need to make sure I consider.
>
> Thanks,
> -Andy
>
>   
Hi Andy,
welcome on board.
I am surely intereseted in any system that would improve and automate
testing.
But that said, bugs can come from many problems :
a) C4 modules functions (this can be automated via your work)

a') misconfiguration (How to ensure configuration is appropriate ?
Checking out framework settings and systempreferences ?)
b) The use of those functions via intranet or OPAC (would require
Selenium testing)
c) translations (since some js can be broken in js. Again, selenium
testing, but on a wider scale)

And we have MARC-21 and UNIMARC to test.
So not only one testbase, but two.
But I am really interested.
Will you commit your work ?
-- 
Henri-Damien LAURENT