Packages with missing %check

[Andrew Lutomirski]

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Richard W.M. Jones <rjones at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 03:45:51PM +0100, Matthias Runge wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 08:50:18AM -0500, Adam Jackson wrote:
>> > On Tue, 2014-02-25 at 12:45 +0200, Alexander Todorov wrote:
>> >
>> > > 1) Do we consider this a bug and if yes what priority do you give it? From last
>> > > week discussions it looks like most people prefer to have tests executed in %check.
>> >
>> > I don't consider %check to be an appropriate way to run tests, so no, I
>> > don't consider it a bug.  Stating it broadly: we don't have a separate
>> > phase for it in koji, which means we can't adequately set up tests in
>> > general; and adding it to koji would be a mistake, because build
>> > construction and build validation are fundamentally different phases.
>> >
>> > This is an argument against %check, not against testing in general.  We
>> > should be relying on rpmbuild less, not more.  rpm doesn't even have
>> > anything like Requires(check), does it?
>>
>> Hmm, then we should probably about enhancing this? Like adding a
>> separate phase of for %check to rpmnbuild?
>
> There is a proposal to allow better testing of packages, and groups of
> packages.  Actually at least two proposals but the one I'm thinking of
> now is:
>
>   https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Taskotron
>
> Previous discussion:
>
>   https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2013-December/193267.html
> & https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2014-January/thread.html#193521
>
>> IMHO, that still belongs to building a package, as I don't want
>> a package pushed, when checks are not executed successfully.
>
> Some testing can be done in %check, and some testing needs to be done
> outside %check because either it involves multiple packages, or
> because it's too heavyweight for %check, or because it involves some
> extra permissions (eg. root, a VM, etc).

Just to mention: there are probably many packages where the equivalent
of %check can't be run without access to a source tree, so Taskotron
can't usefully replace %check.  I maintain a package like that.

--Andy