[petsc-dev] every test example runs in a new directory with new test harness

[Barry Smith]

  The PETSc binary format is over 20 years old :-)

  Even if you want to change the format can't you just update the binary file that is diffed when you change the format? In the same way that when we change the format for -ksp_view ASCII we update the output files we diff against.

   It is not clear to me that having a test system that sequentializes test runs is simpler than a model that does not require sequentializing tests.

   Barry


> On Feb 9, 2017, at 9:09 PM, Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 9:07 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> 
> > On Feb 9, 2017, at 7:26 PM, Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 7:06 PM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
> > Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> writes:
> > > So I need to check in this checkpoint file in order to test reading it in,
> > > and also the diffing? I am not sure I like that better.
> > > Shouldn't we design our test system to do this simple thing, rather than
> > > clutter our repository for all time?
> >
> > Shouldn't we do the stronger test that guarantees the file format does
> > not silently change?
> >
> > I don't think an undocumented format is as much of a consideration as keeping
> 
>   Why are you using an undocumented format? Doesn't seem such a good idea.
> 
> We make these kinds of tradeoffs all the time. What is the overhead for documenting
> something that may be changed soon. It is higher than we want to pay sometimes,
> whereas testing something that exists pays off immediately.
> 
>    Matt
>  
> > the repo clean.
> >
> >    Matt
> >
> > --
> > What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.
> > -- Norbert Wiener
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.
> -- Norbert Wiener