[Python-Dev] fixing tests on windows (original) (raw)

Tim Golden mail at timgolden.me.uk
Wed Apr 9 15:04:57 CEST 2008

Trent Nelson wrote:

-----Original Message----- From: Tim Golden [mailto:mail at timgolden.me.uk] Sent: 04 April 2008 09:30 To: Trent Nelson Cc: Python-Dev Subject: Re: [Python-Dev] fixing tests on windows Yes. I'm trying desperately hard to stick to a narrow remit of getting tests to run consistently in the face of messy file-locking semantics under Windows. I really don't want to wade into the minor minefield of making all the tests run with consistent temp file semantics. But I may have to. Hey Tim, any progress on this? I'd like to start working on this towards the weekend...

Thanks for the prod, Trent. In short, yes, I spent some time on this over the weekend but haven't had time since. I found myself becoming more and more worried at the amount I had to change, especially given rumblings on the list concerning not changing the tests if possible.

The possibilities I've been pursuing are these:

  1. Leave TESTFN as-is and make the .unlink more robust

  2. Leave TESTFN static but instead of "./@TEST" use the tempfile module to generate a random name in whatever temp dir applies for the test system. And make the .unlink more robust.

  3. Drop TESTFN and have a function testfn () which generates a new tempdir filename every time. And make the .unlink more robust.

Each of these approaches has had its problems, and I'm additionally hampered by the fact that I don't run *nix or OSX (or any other platform). I spent far more time than I really had setting up a VMWare player with Ubuntu but I haven't got it to the point of building the tests which won't run under Windows.

Pros and cons:

  1. Running with a fairly aggressive directory watcher, this doesn't do enough to make the tests worth. Not worth it.

  2. A bit better, especially since the betting is that most of the suspect apps (local search engines etc.) won't index %TEMP%. But... certain tests run into problems because they assume that the filename of TESTFN has no escape-needy characters such as the backslash. Need to update at least those tests.

  3. [This is what I was trying over the weekend]. Loads of work and quite intrusive. I'll try to get hold of my patch this evening and mail it over to you. Part of the problem is working out where each test is expecting TESTFN to be the same file each time and where it doesn't care.

I was heartened to see that you'd gone ahead with the -- almost as invasive -- socket test changes. If you'd like to take on what I've got so far, or simply to adopt your own strategy, please feel free.

TJG

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list